


Bloodride!

by jamwrites



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Character Death, Complete, Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gun Violence, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Lance (Voltron), Swearing, Underage Drinking, it's the wild west there's gonna be lots of booze okay, klance, violence typical of a corny western movie ya feel me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-05-09 22:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 67,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamwrites/pseuds/jamwrites
Summary: America, 1870. The golden age of the Wild West. Living on the edge of adventure is The Ghost of the West, the legendary bandit otherwise known as Lance McClain. Together with his gang of unruly outlaws, Lance leads a life of booze and bullets, fearing nothing. Nothing, that is, until his romance with an aristocratic young man entangles him in the plots of the treacherous Galra Mining Company…“How do I look?”“Like a very handsome Ghost.” Keith kissed Lance’s cheek. “But you need to shave.”“Really? I was going for the “outlaw rogue cowboy” look. Like a real dangerous character. A gang leader.”A snort erupted from Keith’s throat. “Yeah. I’ve seen your gang. Pidge and Hunk don’t exactly count."





	1. The Ghost of the West

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic I’ve been working on since forever. I’ve poured my heart and soul into it, and it’s full of fun zany action, lots of explosions, kissing, drama, and that good, good wild west aesthetic. Weekly updates will come every Friday!

The Ghost of the West followed only one law: doing the right thing was stupid.

Lance wasn’t a particularly religious man—no time for church when your family was busy building a new life on the frontier—so there were no gods he had to answer to, save the occasional nod to Lady Luck. No, Lance had no rules, not qualms or questions of moral right and wrong within him. Doing the right thing meant sacrifice, and Lance had learned to avoid that like a poison. The only piece of advice he followed was one he had learned long ago. Whilst laying half dead in puddles where mud and blood mixed together like a lazy poison and smoke choked out the air in his lungs, Lance had become a fervent believer in that one, highest rule: doing the right thing was stupid.

Which was why Hunk was starting to piss him off.

“I mean, what if we just, like, don’t hurt them?” Hunk squirmed, his shoulder bumping Lance’s. The three of them—Lance, Hunk, and Pidge—had been laying belly-down on the outcropping since sunrise, horses tied up behind them, waiting for the caravan to enter the deep and narrow chasm they had picked for the ambush. None of them had eaten. Or stretched, for that matter, and their edges were beginning to rub a little raw.

Lance elbowed Hunk. “Dude, we can’t rob them without someone getting hurt, and I don’t plan on that being me. My beautiful face wouldn’t look good decorated with a bullet hole.”

“That’s ‘cause your mouth hole is already big enough.” Pidge, on Lance’s other side, sniggered.

“You know what? I don’t deserve this. Why doesn’t everyone just go clean your rifles or something?”

“Already have. Twice.” Pidge gestured towards her neat little stack of guns. “I was so bored I even cleaned your guys’, too.” She raised her eyebrows at Lance with exaggerated excitement. “Oh, here’s an idea! How about you actually tell us what the plan is?”

Lance sighed. He was too tired for this. And too stiff, and hungry, and he really, really had to pee. Why couldn’t everyone just accept that he knew what he was doing?

Still, just to distract himself, he flipped open the golden pocket watch Keith had given him. After watching a few seconds tick by, Lance snapped it shut.

“The plan hasn’t changed; when the caravan gets here, we ambush ‘em. Go for the black carriage. Get what’s inside and get out. Easy as pie.”

“You know, making pie is actually a really involved process that requires a lot skill--”

“Ok, but what about the carriage? What are we after?” Pidge asked.

Lance studied his fingernails. The truth was, he didn’t want to tell the other two what their prize was, not because he didn’t trust them, but because he was scared. If this didn’t work, Lance wanted himself to be the only one taking the fall.

Because they weren’t robbing just any old caravan of goons travelling out in the wild Western frontier like normal. No, this was the biggest job Lance’s little gang had ever taken on. This afternoon, at exactly one o’clock, a caravan from Galra Mining Company was going to come through that gorge. Loaded onto the wagons would be stacks of valuable mining equipment headed for some poor frontier town being eyed up by the Company. There was also dynamite and gold and lots of guards riding valuable horses and carrying valuable weapons.

But Lance wasn’t interested in any of that.

At least, not today. No, his target was the one carriage that would be right in the middle of the wagon line, and he wouldn’t have another shot at it, because in a matter of days a new railway would be finished and caravans would cease to exist in this part of Texas. Specifically, Lance wanted the someone within the carriage. Today was no ordinary robbery. Lance grinned to himself, still unable to let himself believe this plan would work, still unable to imagine how rich they would be if it did.

Today was no ordinary robbery, indeed.

Today was a kidnapping.

“Uh, guys? I think I see something. Do you see something? There’s definitely something.” Hunk pointed in the direction of the opening of the gorge; from their vantage point atop the outcropping, they could see both the entrance and the exit of their ambush-ready pass.

Lance pulled the brim of his wide hat lower over his eyes to ward off the sun. He squinted. Hunk was right: there was something moving on the horizon. Far away, there were carts beginning to make their way over the scrubby expanse of dead bushes and rocks and dry dirt. A small smile spread over Lance’s lips at the thought of the coming mayhem.

He scooted back from the lip of the outcropping, careful not to stand until the carts were out of view. “Alright Pidgeladies and gentleHunks, the time for greatness is upon us. Saddle up!”

Blue was waiting patiently beside Yellow and Green, flickering her long tail in happiness at the sight of Lance. He ran a hand over her velvety muzzle.

“Hey babe, ready to go?” Blue blew air over his hand in response, then nickered softly. She was the most beautiful horse Lance had ever seen; a white coat with dapples of brown like clouds, growing smaller and smaller until they ran across her muzzle, twin freckles to Lance’s. Long stretches of old burn scars formed a receding ocean wave across her belly and sides, but those were the most beautiful part of her. Like the freckles, they matched Lance.

Somebody who cared more might have found that poetic.

Lance had tied up Blue’s saddle that morning, so all he had to do was swing his long legs over and squeeze her ever so softly with his knees. The hot sun suddenly was a spotlight, the breeze baited like breath. Lance glanced back at Hunk, already on Yellow. His rifle lay across his lap, and though he looked like he might be sick, he always looked that way before a good robbery. On the other hand, Pidge, who was clambering up onto Green, looked how Lance felt; stirred up and electric like a building thunderhead on a clear horizon. She would take up a position on the lip of the gorge to lay down covering fire and hopefully keep Lance and Hunk alive long enough to pull this off.

Lance didn’t have much of a pep talk. He took the reins and swung Blue around to the edge of the outcropping, a steep slope that would lead them to the top of the gorge. There, they would still be riding over the heads of the Galra Mining Company grunts, but would be close enough to shoot with accuracy and eventually get level to ambush the carriage.  

“Uh, nobody get shot. That would really suck.” He nodded at Pidge and reached into his pocket to squeeze Keith’s pocket watch. The cool metal soothed his warm skin. Calm washed over him.

Then, without wasting any more time, he touched his heels to Blue’s sides. All the pent up energy of her muscles surged forward beneath him like a high tide, and he was off.

These were the moments of life Lance lived for. As he careened down the scree slope, he tried his best to take in the lightness of his chest, the wind whipping through his hair, the surging power of Blue between his legs. Anticipation raced through his veins. Lance was eager and scared at the same time, wanting to taste that knife’s edge separation of life and death, to reach out and grasp that thin veil in his hands, coil it around his wrist, and pull just to see what would happen. There was a good chance he would catch a bullet in this fight. Part of him balked at the thought. But another part, the bigger part, was ravenous for that chance.

With practiced ease, Lance drew his rifle from across his back. He and Hunk were riding along the edge of the chasm now, and the Galra caravan was coming up ahead. The poor saps were just catching sight of them now, and the dawning looks of fear on their faces was priceless.

Lance put his eye to the sights and squeezed the trigger; the Galra hired hand dropped like a sack of stones.

Blue thundered past the caravan, which was travelling in the opposite direction. Lance picked off two more guards in the same pass, the gunshots crackling like wildfire in the dry breeze. Then he was wheeling Blue around, racing to catch back up with the carts. They still hadn’t even drawn their weapons.

He spurred blue on, Hunk by his side, and was soon bearing back over the caravan. This time, however, Lance yanked on the reigns.

“See you on the other side!” Through the flying dust he grinned and saluted at Hunk. Pidge’s bullets flew past his ears. He was alive, _oh shit he was going to die_ , he was alive, alive, alive.

Lance yanked the reins again and Blue obeyed without question. She banked right.

They sailed over thin air.

For one second, then two, three, Lance was flying. Weightlessness filled his limbs, and it was almost as if he could feel the empty air beneath him. Those moments stretched long.

Blue’s hooves slapped onto the rock. Scrabbled for purchase.

For one sickening moment Lance thought she might slip, but then her balance returned and they were solid again. He wheeled her around; the Galra caravan was making hard for the end of the chasm, Hunk still on their tail, Pidge raining death from above. The guards, some riding the wagons, others their own horses, had their weapons drawn. Lance grinned: _game on._

He leaned down close to Blue’s ear. Between his legs, her chest was heaving, but he could tell she still had plenty left to give.

“You ready, girl?”

His heels barely had to touch into her sides. The world blurred around Lance as they careened down a slope towards the caravan. Staccato bursts of gunfire penetrated the silence of the wilderness. Beneath it, Blue’s gallop was a steady line of bass. Though she swayed back and forth, Lance felt perfectly balanced; he gripped tight with his thighs, raised his rifle, and shot. Three bullets, three men below him down, their bodies falling off their mounts. The riderless horses pulled up in confusion. Lance made a mental note to come back for them later, since they would fetch a good price at an auction.

Right now, however, he had more pressing concerns; the black carriage in the center of the caravan was coming up fast, and there were plenty of Galra to deal with. Their aim was getting better. Bursts of dust and dirt exploded at Blue’s hooves, in the rock by Lance’s head. His face was constantly peppered with stones and debris. Fear and fire mixed with the whiskey he and Pidge had drank the night before around the bonfire.

“Hunk!” Lance waved a hand to get Hunk’s attention from the other side of the narrow pass. “The rope! Now would be a good time!”

Hunk looked up from his sights and nodded. Stowing his rifle, he reached into Yellow’s saddlebags and brought out a length of nice, thick rope, a heavy stone tied in its middle. With a throw that only his massive arms could accomplish, Hunk lobbed one end of the rope across to Lance, which he plucked smoothly out of the air.

The guards were all driving forward to protect the middle of the caravan, where the most expensive equipment and the carriage resided. It was a good enough strategy, Lance supposed, but his was better.

The wind whistled in his ears. Dust caught in his mouth. And Lance only wanted more. Atop Blue, the memories couldn’t catch him.

Lance stretched out his hand and let the rock pull the middle of the rope into the chasm, creating what was essentially a great big clothesline. With another nod, he and Hunk both urged a burst of speed out of their horses. The rope shot forward, and, lifted by Lance and Hunk, came down in front of the chest of mounted guard. Lance yanked, and the guard was pulled right out of the saddle. He tumbled away in the dirt, and their clothesline trembled, eager for another victim.

Coming up behind another guard. They swung the rope, and the rock tied in the middle caught her square in the back of the head, knocking her out cold.

Lance held up two fingers and pointed at the black carriage: this was their ultimate prize. With one last burst of speed, they caught up to it and snagged the driver’s neck in the rope. Soon he was eating dirt too.

“Alright Blue, you take care without me.” Lance patted her side. “Be a good girl, and give ‘em hell.”

His heart fluttered in his chest. Out of this whole operation, this was the part Lance was most nervous about.

With quivering legs, he stood in his saddle, touching down with his hands at first, but then, becoming more sure of himself, standing fully upright. More bullets whistled by, but he paid them no mind. Either they would hit him or they wouldn’t. Worrying wouldn’t help.

Lance wound the length of rope around his hand. He sent up a quick prayer to whoever was listening, then threw himself into space.

If he had been weightless before, now he was suspended in motion. The world seemed to freeze around him. For one long moment, Lance freefell into the gorge.  

The rope pulled taught. Pain exploded where it bit into his palm, and suddenly Lance was swinging in an arc over the heads of the Galra guards, too bewildered to shoot. Lance, however, was not. With one fluid motion he drew a pistol from his hip and buried a handful of bullets in a couple of chests.

His boots slammed into the side of the carriage. Fumbled for a toehold. For one sickening moment Lance thought he might fall and be dragged beneath the wheels, but then his boot smashed through the glass window and found solid footing. He quickly unwound the rope and let it go; it snaked back into the air as Hunk, still riding level, coiled it back up.

Before anyone decided to take some more shots at him, Lance slithered his legs in through the broken window. But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the wood of the carriage exploded by his left ear. He whipped his head around and saw what looked like an elderly Galra captain of some sort driving her horse hard, revolver raised and smoking, eyes narrowed to slits. A wild mane of white hair whipped behind her head like the avenging stormcloud of God, hot on his heels.

Before Lance could react she was on him, grabbing at his arms, dragging him from the carriage, flipping his view upside down. Lance squirmed and kicked, but it did no good; in another second she would have him.

He looked around, desperate. There had to be something. The wind howled, the speed they were travelling ripped through his body. _Come on._

His eyes came to rest on the carriage horse’s reins, flapping wildly about with no driver to hold them. Lance grinned, a malicious idea forming; oh yeah, those would do just fine. Maybe someone up there really was listening.

_What about the day he came? Where they listening then?_

With a twist of his wrist he broke the guard’s hold on one of his arms, then grabbed wildly for the reins: success.

“Hey, lady!” he called, looking at her front his position upside-down, hanging out the carriage window. “On a scale of one to ten, how much would you say you enjoy eating rocks?”

She looked at him, nonplussed, and Lance took the opportunity to tug on the reins. Hard.

The horses pulling the carriage amiably obliged and veered to the right. In her surprise the woman let go of Lance and he slid all the way in through the window just before the carriage slammed into the horse, who in turn slammed into the stony wall of the gorge. The rider’s head knocked against the rocks and she slumped forward in the saddle, to bother Lance no more.

Lance settled down in a plush black velvet seat, breathing heavily. The inside of the carriage was decked out in Galra finery, and looked like it cost more than Lance’s life.

 _Oh, would you look at that._ There was a convenient little ice chest at his feet. How thoughtful. Lance flipped open the lid and found, to his delight, a bottle of whiskey. This day just kept getting better and better.

Lance popped it open and took a long swallow, relishing the burn of the liquor as it traveled down the throat. There were probably better things to be drinking at noon on the day of a kidnapping, but hey. He was thirsty.

He took a second swallow for good measure. He might as well since the Galra were paying. Satisfied, Lance turned to the other occupant of the carriage.

“Told you I wouldn’t be late,” he said, and kissed Keith on the cheek.

 

**

 

_A hammering on the door dragged Lance out of sleep._

 _Blearily, painfully, he forced his eyes open; sunlight was streaming into their room in the hotel, illuminating the gilded furniture that could only have been bought with the wealth of the Company, a line of credit Keith had direct access to. Outside he could hear carriages passing on the street. Lance had always loved that about Chicago: constant movement, everyone going somewhere, always something exciting to be found around the next corner that could never be had out on the frontier. Everything was alive and moving and breathing and_ awake.

_But now, from the sound and looks of it, it must be nearly noon. How had he slept so late?_

_Someone moaned by his side. Lance looked over_ ; oh, duh. _A slow and stupid smile spread across his face. He hadn’t gotten to sleep until late last night. Some part of him had been half-thinking that had been a dream._

_“Rise and shine,” Lance crooned. He rested on his elbow and rubbed his stubbly chin against Keith’s cheek. “Don’t you want to see this beautiful face?”_

_The hammering at the door came again. A sideways glance reassured Lance that his pistols and rifle were still lying atop the heap of his other clothes; leather riding pants, a simple cotton shirt, his prized wide-brimmed hat. They were the clothes of a poor man. An outlaw from the Western frontier with nothing but a really cool name: The Ghost of the West. Looking at his rags made him grimace. Even his boots were beginning to fall apart._

_Keith’s pile, on the other hand, was decidedly costlier. There were the sparkling real buttons made from clamshells, a pocket watch chain, and a fine black vest. No riding boots or weapons could be found, only ornaments and a fat wallet. Was Lance really sure this wasn’t a dream?_

_Again he scraped his chin on Keith’s face. Keith moaned, his eyes fluttering in time with Lance’s heart. Wow, was this man beautiful. Black hair splayed in a dark halo on the pillow, framing a cut and angular jawline, delicate cheekbones, and smooth skin. Well, it had been smooth yesterday evening. Now there were tiny purple and blue blooms peppered across Keith’s neck and chest and…other places, too. Lance couldn’t help his smile widening into a grin. Really, a grown man of twenty-one should have known to avoid people like Lance by now._

_The knocking came again, and this time it sounded decidedly less pleasant._

_“Keith! The train leaves in an hour. Are you in there?”_

_Multiple footsteps echoed outside the door. No doubt some poor employee of the posh hotel was wringing his hands over all the scuff marks on the expensive carpet. Another reason Lance loved Chicago: even the carpet shined like gold._

_“Keith,” Lance said, this time a bit more urgently. “Wakey-wakey.”_

_He kissed Keith, lightly, on the lips, and watched him fully come awake. In an instant Keith was mirroring Lance’s smile._

_“Good morning.” Then Lance was being kissed back, and wow, he could let himself sink into this feeling again, into the sheets and their skin touching and—_

_He forced himself to pull away. “Hey. Um, so I have some good news and some bad news.”_

_Keith’s eyebrows furrowed. The sunlight was displaying all the wonders of his eyes, discovering buried flecks of gold like treasure in their black-brown depths. “What?”_

_“Well, the good news is, we didn’t dream last night.”_

_Keith looked down at the two of them, decidedly not clothed, and his smile flashed again._

_“Yeah,” he said, a dreamy air to his voice._

_“And the bad news is: I think your brother and the rest of the Company know last night wasn’t a dream either.”_

_The smile evaporated. Keith shot up from under Lance, nearly pushing him off the bed. “What? Why didn’t you say that first?” His eyes flicked toward the door. “Oh, God, are they here already?”_

_From the bed, Lance watched Keith stand, the sunlight pouring over all the corded muscle of his back and legs, pooling in the hollows of his muscles. His throat felt dry. How on Earth had he ever found this man? How had this man ever fallen in love with someone like him?_

_“Well, it’s past noon, so I think they gave us a fair enough head start.”_

_“We shouldn’t have stayed up so late.”_

_“You’re really gonna wish last night away?”_

_Keith paused in pulling up his underwear just long enough to blush and roll his eyes. “Ok, no, but still. And Lance, get dressed, what are you doing? You can’t be here!”_

_“What, do you really think the Ghost of the West is gonna get caught? That’s the beauty of being a Ghost, my dude.”_

_Despite the ridiculousness of their situation, the Galra Mining Company men pounding on the door, Lance couldn’t bring himself to feel real fear. He was still too full of that airy sensation and the belief that nothing could destroy these moments. Lazily, reluctantly, he pulled himself out of bed and slid on his pants._

_“You remember the plan?” He slid his hands around Keith’s bare waist, kissed the back of his neck._

_“Of course I do.”_

_“Okay, okay, I was just asking…but if you’re just telling me you remember the plan and you really don’t, there’s no shame in going over it again.”_

_Keith turned in Lance’s arms and eyed him with mock-seriousness. “I remember the plan,” he said, voice even. His warm, gentle hands cupped Lance’s jaw and Lance swore his entire body was going to melt on the spot. “And it’s going to be fine. I promise.”_

_Outside their window, the crisp Chicago air was calling. Lance allowed Keith to slide his shirt over his head, grinning at him when his head popped out. With steady hands, Keith nestled Lance’s prized hat over his head and tied his blue bandana around his neck, then and stepped back to view his work._

_“There.”_

_“How do I look?”_

_“Like a very handsome Ghost.” Keith kissed Lance’s cheek. “But you need to shave.”_

_“Really? I was going for the “outlaw rogue cowboy” look. Like a real dangerous character. A gang leader.”_

_A snort erupted from Keith’s throat. “Yeah. I’ve seen your gang. Pidge and Hunk don’t exactly count—”_

_“Keith, I’m not gonna ask again!”_

_They both sighed. It was past time for Lance to go. If he waited any sooner, Shiro might break down the door._

_Lance walked over to the window and threw it open; they were only on the second floor, an easy drop. He swung one leg out. But something inside him tugged back. He hated leaving Keith, even with a plan to see him again. A lot of things could happen in the many hundreds of miles between Chicago and Texas. And, as if he could hear the thoughts running rampant in Lance’s head, Keith unhooked the clasp to his pocket watch. He opened Lance’s hand and let the golden chain unspool into his palm, followed by the watch itself. Without saying a word, Keith closed Lance’s fingers. His eyes burned with a fearful, determined, loving intensity._

_“I’ll see you again.”_

_“I know.”_

_“I will, Keith. I promise.”_

_Keith kissed his fingers where they clutched the watch. “It’s time for you to go. You can give that back when we meet again.”_

_Lance flashed the watch, catching a bit of sunlight off the gold. “I won’t be late; watch for me. On the horizon.”_

_And with that, Lance stepped out onto the stone ledge of the window, and Keith slid it shut behind him. The last he saw was Keith, half-dressed, walking over to the door, pretending to rub sleep out of his eyes._

_He didn’t want to leave Keith. Because the truth was, Lance knew, deep inside that men like him wound up swinging, or hunted down or thrown behind bars until they rotted away to nothing. They didn’t have love affairs with aristocrat guys like Keith._

_They didn’t have happy endings._

_Lance turned his attention towards climbing. Trying to get the thoughts out of his head, he quickly worked his way over to a fire ladder, then set about looking to bum a ride to the stables where Blue waited. Keith’s kiss and the watch burned in his hand. There wasn’t time to dwell on what he did or didn’t want or when he was going to die; too much had to be done for their plan to work. If Lance ever wanted to see Keith again, he had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it._

_As he made his way out of the city, Lance could feel the wilderness calling. The adventure. Sure, Chicago was fun, but it was too civilized for his tastes. Give Lance his band of merry outlaws, a good horse to ride and a rifle to shoot and a pair of lips to kiss, and he was content._

_He just had a feeling it was going to be that last thing that got him into trouble._

 

**

 

“Took you long enough,” Keith smiled into their kiss. God, Lance was such a weakling around this man. How could one smile put more fire in his belly than a bottle of whiskey?

“Hey, I’m just following the plan here.”

“Was crashing the carriage into a boulder part of the plan?”

Lance leaned forward and put his hand around the back of Keith’s head, pulling him in deeper. “That was improvising.”

Keith sank, just for a moment, but then pulled back. Why was he pulling back? This kissing was awesome. _Keith’s_ kissing was awesome. Sure, he hadn’t been the greatest when they had met, but Lance had been a pretty excellent teacher, and he was proud of the progress his pupil had made if he did say so himself. And to think: Lance had been the first boy Keith had ever kissed. The first anyone Keith had ever kissed. Because unlike Lance, Keith had no interest in the bawdy girls who danced around the bars, breasts practically hanging out of their dresses. To Lance it didn’t matter; boys and girls were fine by him. But Keith had been more closed off. Not shyer, exactly—it had taken approximately an hour after seeing each other for the first time before they were making out, and that had been _after_ they had gotten into a knife fight against each other. No, getting to this point with Keith...well, it had been so different than anything Lance had been used to. Keith had never done anything like all of this; he hadn’t gotten to. There weren’t exactly half naked men throwing themselves into other men’s laps in the bars. In fact, the only reason Lance had met his ridiculously attractive boyfriend at all was because—

“Lance,” Keith said, breaking apart from the kiss and pulling Lance out of his fantasy, “the reins.”

“Hmm.” Lance wasn’t listening. He just wanted to keep kissing and never ever stop.

But Keith was being stubborn. Typical Keith. “The reins. Who has the reins?”

“Th’driver.” Lance opened one eye as something occurred to him. The driver was...rolling in the dirt, probably half a mile back. Oh. Whoops.

At that moment the cart lurched sideways; Lance scrambled out of the seat and drew back the curtain that looked out over the driver’s bench: without a driver, the four horses pulling the carriage were beginning to lose control. “Shit. Shitshitshitshit.” Lance glanced back at Keith. “Um, I gotta take this one. Be right back.”

Keith looked heavenward. “Some kidnapping this is.”

“All in the plan, babe. All in the plan.”

With that, Lance grabbed the bottle of whiskey and drove the capped end through the glass window. It was just big enough for him to slide his narrow torso through—only getting a few glass shard scrapes down his back in the process—and he emerged, wiggling like a trout and gasping for air, onto the driver’s bench.

Outside, things seemed to have taken a bit of a turn for the worse. The Galra guards had regrouped and were riding hard on the slowing carriage. Hunk and Yellow had hopefully already jumped the gorge, collect Blue, and taken the hidden path back up to Pidge. There was only one more ace left up Lance’s sleeve, and he really hoped it worked; very soon the gorge would come to an end, and then their advantage would be lost; pulling off a high-speed kidnapping, Lance could do. But he didn’t have the manpower or the bladder strength to fight an open war out on flat land.

Lance grabbed the reins and flicked them, rousing the horses to a speed that would at least compete with the single-riding guards. He took stock of the situation: there were still three covered carts riding ahead, each complete with its own guard and driver. As things stood right now, Lance was effectively trapped.

“Keith, darling,” Lance said, calling through the broken window. “I think it’s time we get out of here.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Lance gestured at the small window and Keith muttered some obscenity at him but squeezed through anyway. “This was a new suit jacket,” he complained, brushing off bits of broken glass.

“You knew you were going to be kidnapped today, babe. I mean, I appreciate you dressing up for me, but honestly, it just isn’t practical.”

Keith rolled his eyes but kissed him on the cheek anyway. “Can we focus on the plan?”

“Right, yeah, totally.” Lance grandly swept his arm to the two horses pulling their carriage. “Your steed awaits.”

“What? How am I supposed to get on?  
“Logic suggests you jump.”

“I can’t jump that far, and I especially can’t jump onto a moving horse.”

“Of course you can.”

“And how do you know that?”

_Blam, blam!_

A fresh rain of bullets began to chip away at the fine black wood of the carriage. Lance instinctively threw himself over Keith to protect him; The Ghost of the West may have been a bandit, but he was also most certainly a gentleman.

“Because,” Lance said _,_ “your other choice is getting shot _._ ”

Keith groaned, but stood up anyway while Lance lay down a healthy blanket of cover fire from his twin revolvers.

“You got this, babe.”

“Why do I feel like you’re lying to me?”

“No idea.” Before Keith could complain any more, Lance pushed him in the small of the back, and then he had no option but to leap. He landed belly-down on the horse’s back, clutching it with both arms and legs like a starfish. A moment later Lance followed, but his leap was decidedly more graceful.

“There are no saddles on these horses!”

“Well yeah, they’re pulling a carriage! What do you expect?”

Lance ignored him and got to sawing through the leather strap around the horse’s neck that connected its two reins to the carriage. By some minor miracle he managed not to get shot while doing his and Keith’s, and then they were free, the carriage falling behind, tripping up some of the guards on their tails.

“Hiya!” Kicking his heels into his horse’s side, Lance waved at Keith to follow. Together they galloped through the narrow space between the next cart and the gorge wall.

Lance drew the bottle of whiskey from his jacket, the same one that he had liberated from the carriage. With one hand he tore away a piece of his shirt and stuffed it down the bottle’s neck. With the other he drew from his boot a match, which he struck on his heel and used to light the dusty fabric.

“Go get ‘em.” Lance kissed the bottle, then overarmed it at the cart. It sailed blissfully through the air like an alcohol-filled angel only to shatter and spill its sweet, golden nectar on the canvas that covered the equipment beneath. The cart went up in flames with a _whoosh_ , the fire spreading like a greedy child across the canvas. Soon the wooden cart itself was a ball of fire and the horses pulling it were screaming, though they were too far to actually be harmed by the flames. Instead, they broke stride and galloped pellmell ahead to try and escape the flames, only succeeding in wedging their cart up against the next and lighting that one aflame too.

The dust in his mouth.

Sun in his eyes.

Wind whipping through his hair.

It was utter chaos.

It was gorgeous.

Horses and guards were screaming and nobody quite seemed to know whether or not to put out the flames or shoot at Lance. Keith was looking at him with a mixture of admiration and fear, and that dangerous, swooping feeling was back. the sensation of riding on life’s very fine edge, staring down into the void, and laughing at it.

But the final cart was making itself a bit of problem; its driver had shown some initiative and sped up ahead, where he had then parked the cart horizontally to plug up the gorge like a bath drain. Unfortunately for him, there were now four horses crazed with fear running straight for the barrier towing three tons of flaming mining equipment behind them. And where was Lance and Keith in all this but, of course, square in the middle.

“Lance! We’re trapped!”

“Hell we are,” Lance gritted his teeth. “We’re gonna jump it!”

“What is with you and jumping?”

“Just do it!”

“What if my horse won’t jump?”

“It will!”

And then there was no time left to argue. The cart driver, who had before been taking potshots at Lance from his horse, had now seen the folly of his ways and was turning tail to get the heck out of their path. Lance leaned in low over his horse, feeling the air whistling over his back, and grinned wildly. This was it. Do or die. No time for thinking, no time for hesitation.

Up at the top of the gorge, he spied a glint of light: Hunk and Pidge’s signal. If things hadn’t already been interesting around here, they were about to be.

“NOW!” Lance screamed, and then he and Keith were sailing through the air, just barely clearing the cart. At that same second, a giant, earth-shattering _BOOM_ rocketed through the gorge, rattling Lance’s teeth. He wheeled his horse around just in time to see the two flaming carts skidding across the dirt, crashing into one another and shattering. Their horses, now free, leapt over the obstacle and thundered past Lance and Keith, headed for open land.

The Galra, too, were recovering. Oozing past the carts was a squadron of guards, all looking decidedly less than pleased with how events were unfolding.

“Uh? Lance?” Keith directed his hose over to stand by Lance. “Shouldn’t we be going now?”

Lance smiled an easy smile. “Nah. We’re all good. All in the plan, Keith. All in the plan.”

The universe must have been feeling particularly poetic that afternoon, because no sooner than the words had left Lance’s mouth than a fireball erupted from the lip of the gorge, followed by a massive rockslide. Hundreds of tons of boulders and loose scree tumbled down and flooded the gorge between their horses and the carts, sealing it off completely. The Galra would have no choice but to turn back and head home with their tails between their legs.

Lance stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose three ear-piercing whistles. A moment later, he heard Pidge and Hunk’s response; the all-clear.

Right, good. All Lance had to do now was regroup with Hunk and Pidge in their hidden camp and watch the Galra Company search for Keith for a few days before giving up and moving on to the town they were targeting. Then Lance could ransom Keith back, get stupidly rich, double cross Zarkon, and hightail it the hell out of there and leave the Galra to move onto their next victim. Easy peasy.

That was when the bullet sank into Lance’s flesh.

 _Typical,_ he thought, and then—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if the banners don't work for you/are hard to read! I wanted to try those this time but if they suck I'll quit it. The first one reads "Chicago, two days ago" and the second/last is "blackout".
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Empty Horizons

_Memories swirled in his head, fighting for control, rising to the top like bubbles in beer and then bursting, spilling their images across his brain. He was drowning in their sea._

 

12 years old.

_“Lance,” Mama had said, voice trembling with worry, fear crinkling the skin around her eyes. “Lance, go down to the creek to fetch some water for me. Hurry now.” The floorboards of their cabin trembled with hoofbeats. Papa had gone outside with the rifle and had not come back._

 

_“Mama? Mama!” Lance stumbled through the night, the chill in the air working its way into his bones with icy fingers that burned. He was barefoot. Sharp rocks kept cutting into his feet but he didn’t care, he couldn’t even feel them._

_A trickle of blood dripped down his forehead. He tried to swallow. Couldn’t. Where was home? Which way was he going? Though he had lived on this land all his life, Lance was lost. He had woken up under a small rocky overhang at the base of a hill, but that was it. The vast wilderness of Texas was a wild beast and it was about to eat him whole._

_He was lost. Lost and confused and he couldn’t remember. There were flashes. Snippets. But the thoughts slid out of his pounding head and everything was the texture of cotton and spinning like the wooden tops his father made. Lance couldn’t remember. Mama had told him...told him what?_

_“Lance, run! I’ll come for you.”_

_He had nothing except the clothes he was wearing and the ominous feeling in his gut, the horrible terror that something was very, very wrong._

_Now he was walking up a hill. There seemed to be some brightness shining around it; was it the sun rising? Lance felt a flicker of hope dispel a little of that black feeling. If he could just find his way home…_

_He crested the top of the hill and froze._

_With a thud, Lance fell to his knees._

_Before him lay his family’s home and the barns and pastures where they kept the horses and the cattle; it was all Lance had ever known, built by his father when they had come out west to tame the land. It was his life. His everything._

_And it was burning to the ground._

  

Ten years old.

_He was hiding behind the kitchen door, peering in through a crack, watching his Papa pace while Mama stood at the table._

_“Do you know how much they’re_ worth— _”_

_“I don’t care!” Mama turned on Papa, finger pointed, hair flying out of its bun. Her beautiful brown skin was patchy and pale. “You know what will happen if word gets out that we have them on our property.”_

_Papa threw up his hands. “Of course I do! We will be rich!”_

_“We will be_ dead. _” Voice trembling with fury and fear, Mama took Papa’s hands in her own and drew them to her chest. When she spoke, her voice quivered in the accent speaking this place’s language gave it. “I’ve seen what those people do. And if they know what we have, they will not show us mercy.”_

 

Seven years old.

 _His ankle hurt where he had fallen on it, but Lance wasn’t thinking much of it. His entire attention was taken up by the beautiful blue glow, the pulsing light that beat within the crystals like a living thing. He knew he should cry for help, that he should be afraid, but strangely, he wasn’t. The crystals seemed to be singing to him:_ have no fear, have no fear…

 

**

 

Waking up wasn’t actually as bad as Lance had expected.

Well, clarification: it was still pretty awful. But he had also spent many, many mornings questioning his choice in the number of drinks he had downed the night before, and at least this time that throbbing pain was in his leg and not behind his forehead.

Voices swam in his ear as if he was underwater. _His mother, the crystals, Keith…_

“Lance? Lance!” A hand brushed his bare chest. When had that happened? Lance peered blearily upward. Oh, there he was. Keith.

“Hey buddy.” Lance grinned, because why not? He couldn’t quite think straight through the fog of pain that the little headache in his thigh was exuding.

Keith frowned. Oh no! He didn’t have to look so worried! Lance was totally fine. But when he tried to tell Keith as much, all of his words came out slurred. And the ache did seem to be setting up a vacation home in his head after all.

“...gave you whiskey, to help with the pain,” Keith was saying. And then there was a cup at his lips and Lance didn’t want whiskey, he couldn’t believe he was saying that, but it was true. He must really have been out of it.

It didn’t matter, because this time it was water. Oh, thank heaven.

Lance drank greedily, feeling his mind clear a little with every gulp. Water ran in rivulets down his cheek like rain in a storm.

“Slow down, dude.” Keith tipped the cup away from Lance, his face sliding from concern to relief.

“You’re okay,” Lance muttered.

That made Keith laugh. He bent down and kissed Lance, lightly, softly, and Lance yearned for more; that kiss was better for his pain than all the whiskey he could drink. “Of course I am. I’m not the one who got shot.”

“Shot?” Lance groaned at the loss of the wonderful kissing of Keith. But also, the sensible and no fun part of his brain argued, getting shot would explain all of the pain. “Who the heck was I shot by?”

“That would be me.”

Keith took a breath. That was when Lance noticed they were in what appeared to be a shallow cave. Well, no more than a hollow in the side of a hill, really. A small fire burned off in one corner, and the only blanket seemed to be the one Lance was lying on.

Out of the opening of the cave strode a goddess.

That was the first thought in Lance’s head; the woman standing over him and Keith was tall, her skin dark, her body lithe and muscled and coiled like a weapon. Her curiously white hair was done up in a long braid that hung over the poncho she wore that didn’t quite hide the rifle and what looked like a saber strapped to her back. There was no doubt in Lance’s mind that she knew how to use them.

Also, she looked pissed.

The woman took a step forward and Keith leaned protectively over Lance, which was adorable. However, it only seemed to piss her off more.

“For heaven’s sake, I’m not going to shoot him again,” she said with wave of her hand. Her voice had the ring of someone from across the pond; Lance had met one or two men from Britain when he was younger, and he was reminded of them now. “You can stop acting like I’m going to kill you both.”

“Uh, were you trying to kill me before?” Lance sat up. Rubbed his poor, poor head. “Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on? Who even are you?”

“I’m...Allura,” she said slowly. Defensively.

“Apparently she doesn’t work for Galra,” Keith said to Lance, his face whispering, _I don’t believe her._ But the words were no more out of Keith’s mouth than Allura rounded on him, braid swinging.

“I do not work for those _pigs_. And that’s high talk coming from the son of one of their primary investors.” Allura strode forward, fingers twitching around her guns. In an instant Keith was standing, and though he came up nearly a head shorter than her, Lance could tell they were both at each other’s throats.

“I didn’t ask for my mother to work for Galra.”

“And I didn’t ask for Galra to kill mine.”

Allura’s voice echoed like a gunshot in the small cavern; that was when Lance noticed the tears in her brilliant eyes, the trembling in her hands.

For a moment Allura seemed like she was about to fall apart into a thousand pieces. Instead, she turned away, arms folded but back straight. Lance caught the flicker of pain on Keith’s face. He coughed.

“Okay, okay, so neither of you like the Galra. Me neither. So what does that make you, Allura? Like, are you some kind of assassin? What the hell?”

Allura shot Keith another look over her shoulder, then flicked her eyes towards Lance, none of the tension draining from her body.

Without turning she said, “I was going to ask you the same thing: _what the he-...heck?_ ”

“Really? You can’t swear?”

“If you must know, it’s a matter of personal preference.”

“It’s stupid, is what it is.”

Allura rolled her eyes. “ _Moving on,_ I did not wish to speak to this Galra...associate...or believe anything he said. I elected to wait until you had woken up to ask questions. But then I come in here and...and...you two are kissing? You’re kissing this Galra?” This time, she rounded on Lance. “So, what the _heck_ indeed?”

Lance’s head swirled. Nothing, absolutely nothing here was making sense. The woman who shot him didn’t trust anyone but the dude she had shot? Where was the logic in that?

With a groan, Lance forced himself to his feet. He stumbled and Keith caught him. Though Lance was never one to pass by an opportunity to be held by Keith’s wonderfully muscled (if a bit pale) arms, this might be a little more important.

“Look,” Lance said, leaning heavily on Keith. “You’re the one who shot me. So I don’t really think I have to tell you anything before you tell me what the heck is going on here. For starters: why did you shoot me? Also a great question: why did you shoot me?”

“Because I need to take him _.”_ Allura poked a finger into Keith’s chest, then seemed to have a quick argument with herself that resulted in throwing up her hands and pacing back and forth along the width of the cave. Finally, she turned to face the two of them, chest heaving, and pulled a ring from her finger, shoving it in Lance’s face. On it was a decorative “A”.

“I’m from a town called Altea, on the Texan frontier. This ring proves it. Near us is...is an ore that Zarkon wants. We tried to negotiate, but Zarkon is coming, bearing down with meaningless contracts and dynamite and his army of hired men, and he’s going to push us out of our home.”

Lance felt the breath whoosh out of him.

_I’ve seen what those people do. And if they know what we have, they will not show us mercy._

Something dark and evil crawled in a burrow deep his head, and Lance jerked back from it as if he had been burned.

Allura steadied herself with a breath. “My father, the mayor of Altea, knew Zarkon. But Zarkon’s greed sparked a terrible chain of events…” She closed her eyes. Opened them again. “All you two need to know is that Zarkon is coming for the riches under Altea. We received word recently of a new supply train heading to a depot near us, bringing the last of the mining equipment to open up the vein. I suspect your stunt with the carts will slow him down, but Zarkon’s determination will  only grow. If nobody does anything, Zarkon _will_ find a way to destroy us all.”

Lance couldn’t breathe right. His broken memories, their sharp edges, were scraping on the inside of his skull. Something that had been forgotten was desperately trying to be remembered.

“Your town is in danger. So you acted,” Keith said quietly. The look he gave Allura was curiously powerful, filled with...something. There was something there Lance didn’t know. A flash of truth across Keith’s face, quickly covered up again by confusion. Only this time, the confusion was an act.

_What’s going on here?_

“Yes. I came out here with the intention to kidnap someone of value and hold them hostage in hopes the Galra would exchange their life for our town. But then things became...complicated. Your friend saved your life, Lance.”

Well, that was interesting. Lance pushed away the memories crowding in his head. _Stop it._ He could have a breakdown sometime else; right now he needed to focus.

“First of all, he’s not my friend. He’s not even my ‘ _special’_ friend, or my bro, or whatever. You can say boyfriend.” Lance turned to Keith. “You saved my life?”

Keith smiled wanly. “I thought about leaving you behind. Couldn’t do it.”

“He risked himself.” The fire crackled under Allura’s voice, throwing long shadows over her face. “I arrived after the explosion, and I thought you were just a Galra guardsman escorting him away from the fight. But then Keith put a gun to his own throat. He told me I was to take the both of you, or none of you.”

Lance snorted. “Sure sounds like Keith.”

Keith nudged him with his toe, eyebrow raised. “Hey, it saved you, didn’t it?”

Speaking of saving, Lance wondered if Hunk and Pidge were okay. By the time Allura showed up the two of them should have been riding for their rendezvous point. And since they hadn’t acted, Lance could only assume that meant they had gotten away safely.  

He wasn’t about to ask Keith though, not in front of Allura; something told him it would be smarter not to show her all his cards. Sure, her intentions seemed to be in the right place, but doing the right thing was stupid. Lance had never really been about that life. As evidenced by his wooing of the employee of an evil corporate magnate. And his love of whiskey. And guns. And bending the occasional law or two in what some might call “land pirating”.

“So…” Lance shifted his weight around, his hurt leg yelling in pain. Hell if he was going to sit in front of Allura, though. For whatever dumb reason he felt like he was in a contest with her perfection, which was exhausting, because he was already eternally in contest with his dear Keith. Sure they were boyfriends, but that didn’t mean they still didn’t try to outdo each other at every turn. That just was part of the fun. “...what happens now? Because I am not letting you take Keith and use him like a poker chip.”

“I’m right here. I can speak for myself.”

Lance whipped his head around to face Keith, which didn’t have quite the effect he wanted, since Keith was holding him up and all. “What’s that mean? Wait, you’re not actually considering going with her. You are, aren’t you? Keith, she shot me! _Me_. Lance. Your boyfriend? She’s insane!”

“You shot about fifteen people today, babe.”

“And none of them were _me._ ” Lance shrugged Keith’s arm off from around his shoulder; he could stand on his own, Keith be damned. “I can’t believe you’re actually considering going with her!”

“Who said I was?”

“Well, are you?” Lance raised an eyebrow and held Keith’s eyes, waiting. Finally, Keith looked at the ground.

 _Wonderful._ “You know what? I shouldn’t even be surprised; this is totally what you do.”

“What do you mean, ‘this is what I do’? What is it exactly that I do?”

“I mean...I mean—” Lance spluttered, the words escaping him. Stupid English, stupid everyone who stupid didn’t know how to speak Spanish. He was so much faster in Spanish, but would anyone understand him? No.

Finally, something came: “You always have to jump at the first chance to be a hero.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, not quite, but at the moment his brain wasn’t finding the cipher between the languages.

“I’m not jumping at anything! A town is about to be destroyed. Why is it so bad that I want to help?”

“Because it means leaving me! As in, the guy who just risked his butt to rescue you?”

“You were planning on ransoming me too!”

“And then _stealing_ you _back!_ Totally different situation!” Their foreheads were jammed together now, their noses touching, hot breath on each others’ faces. Lance felt the old frustration bubbling up just like it used to when he had first met this infuriatingly handsome, maddeningly handsome man. Why couldn’t he just _understand?_

 

_The floorboards of their cabin trembled with hoofbeats. Papa had gone outside with the rifle and had not come back._

 

All the breath went out of Lance’s lungs. He took a step back.

“I—I need some air.”

Without making eye contact with Keith and definitely not Allura, Lance turned and his bad leg immediately gave out. He fell; Keith caught him. For some reason that only made the hot frustration worse, and Lance shoved Keith’s arms away.

The hurt was clear on Keith’s face, but Lance didn’t care. If Keith wanted to throw his life away, fine. That was his choice.

 _Air. Get some air._ Gritting his teeth, Lance forced himself to limp out of the cave.

 

**

 

“Hey.”

“Go away. Can’t you see I’m sulking?”

Keith sighed and sat down next to Lance anyway. “That’s supposed to be my thing.”

“Yeah, well. I learned from the best.” Lance stared straight ahead, chin resting on his folded up elbows, knees drawn up close to his chest. The sun was setting over many miles of horizon, spraying jets of orange and red and pink like watercolor in the air. It would have been beautiful if he hadn’t been so pissed.

He breathed the shifting colors in. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend this was a Cuban sunset.

Almost.

“Please don’t go.” The words were out of his mouth before he had even thought them, and Lance found himself trying to bite back at empty air. He didn’t want to admit to Keith that he—that he what? Was afraid for him?

“I’m not going to give myself up like some martyr, you know.” Keith’s voice was quite, rough as the red dust they sat in. “You stole me away from the Company once. We can do it again. I’m going to fight them all if I have to.” Lance looked over just in time to see Keith’s jaw clench. “This is the right thing to do.”

“That just means it’s stupid! There’s gonna be a ton more security around you if they take you back home. Shiro’ll put you on a leash or something. And that’s _if_ you get back home. You could get killed.” His heart strained against its cage. Trying, trying to make Keith feel what he felt. “You don’t have to go with Allura. How do you even know she’s telling the truth? She could be crazy, or, like, lying. Have you thought of that?”

But he wasn’t getting through to Keith; he could see it in his eyes. All Lance could feel was Keith’s pig-headedness, his stubborn feet digging themselves in and readying to throw himself into the next fight, throw himself away from Lance. And how could he make him see? Keith thought the world was some damsel that needed his help. Well, that wasn’t quite right. Keith thought that everything could be solved by throwing enough elbow grease and anger at it. Even worse, he thought that there was some cosmic balance of good and evil, some debt that he owed just for being born. But Lance? Lance knew that the only real things were the things he could touch: dirt. Bullets. Boys. Girls. Everyone in between. Good and evil...those were just things people had made up. A conscience was an imaginary voice that got you killed.

And Lance could already see that this Allura woman and Keith were similar: they both heard this imaginary voice. They both saw the world through a lense of right and wrong. The only difference was that Allura seemingly had control over most of her feelings, enough so to manipulate others. Keith, on the other hand, was a wildfire. He burned whatever he touched, and it was people like Allura that took advantage of his flames. People like her were the most dangerous of all.

But he couldn’t find the words for any of this. All he could do was fall forward and bury his head in Keith’s neck.

“Please don’t go,” he mumbled, Keith’s skin warm on his lips. “Please. I don’t know why you think you have to do this.”

Keith drew a long breath. The weight of his head came to rest on Lance’s own, black hair falling over Lance’s eyes.

“All my life I’ve known what my mother was a part of. She helped _build_ the Galra Empire.” Keith put his hand around Lance’s shoulder, drawing him in closer. “And even though Shiro is trying to fight from the inside, that doesn’t change the fact that our paychecks are written in blood money Zarkon stole from people like Allura. And I’ve done _nothing_.”

“You ran away; you came with me.” _Isn’t that enough?_

But Keith didn’t hear him. “Yeah, to get ransom money. Don’t I have a responsibility to do something more? To fix what my family did?”

“Maybe, yeah.” Lance looked at him. “What? I don’t know what you want me to say. But I know that going with Princess Trigger Finger back there is suicide. You know better than anyone what the Galra do to people.”

_“Lance,” Mama said, voice trembling with worry, fear crinkling the skin around her eyes. “Lance, go down to the creek to fetch some water for me. Hurry now.”_

Had he heard the hoofbeats then? Or was the tolling of the bells of death just his imagination now that he knew what had been riding for them that day?

But he pushed that memory down, down, down back where it belonged.

“If you let her use you as a bargaining chip...you don’t know that you’ll be safe with the Galra. I don’t know what might happen and I might not be able to steal you back. But if you come with me, if we just finish the plan the _way_ we planned, we’ll be set up for the _rest of our lives_. Do you have any idea how much Zarkon would pay to get back the brother of his Strategies Divisions Manager? He has no idea how many secrets you might be in on. This could be my last job ever.” The sunset was cool on his face, his tears cool on his cheeks. All the brilliant desert was dressed in its finest for the evening. “Are you really going to choose these strangers over me?” Lance didn’t like how selfish it sounded, but he didn’t care. If that’s what it took to keep Keith, fine.

“I’m not choosing them over you.”

“Yeah? Then what are you doing?”

“I...I just—you wouldn’t understand. You haven’t found something worth your life.”

Lance pulled back, tears stinging in his eyes. He hated himself for it. “And you _have?_ You’ll die for Allura but you won’t live for me?”

“You’d let the whole world die if it meant saving me.”

“And you’d sacrifice everything just save some people you don’t even _know!”_ Lance took a shuddering breath. “You don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you love die.”

The words hung in the air between them.

“Don’t throw this away. Please say you’ll stay. Please.” Lance dragged the back of his hand across his face, wiping grime and dirt on his skin and muddying his tears.

Keith looked at him. His eyes searched back and forth in Lance’s face. It was right there; Lance could see Keith trying to decide, their life together balanced on a knife point. And then:

“Okay. I won’t go.”

The words washed over Lance like cooling waves, soothing and settling his ragged thoughts. He sagged forward into Keith. They sat like that, in an awkward sitting-hug, Lance taking in the smell of Keith’s expensive cotton shirt and his cologne and the earthy, fresh scent that was just the cute guy he was holding.

“Thank you,” he whispered. Keith’s hair was dusty and brittle in his hands. And to Lance’s surprise, he found himself crying.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“Now it is, you big idiot. Here.” Lance dug around in his pocket and came up with the golden pocket watch. He looped the chain around Keith’s neck to make it a necklace. “You were right. We got to see each other again.”

“Yeah.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything...Keith-y.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. Promise.”

“I promise I won’t.”

 _Even if it’s the right thing to do?_ Lance didn’t ask that poison question because he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know the answer. And yet, didn’t he already have an answer? Keith was right here in front of him.

Instead, he asked, “What are we going to tell Allura?”

“That we’re in. Then we wait until she falls asleep and beat it. Simple.”

Lance glanced back at the cave and tried very hard not to think of the defenseless townspeople of Altea. He told himself he didn’t care. Nobody out here survived by being innocent or weak; Altea would have to learn that lesson just like Lance had, and Pidge, and Hunk.

“Shit,” Lance said, pulling back. “Pidge and Hunk are gonna be freaking out. They have no idea where we are.”

“You set a rendezvous point, right?”

“‘ _Did I set a rendezvous point’_ —of course I set a rendezvous point, what do I look like, an amateur?”

“Then we’ll meet them there tomorrow.” Keith yawned and lay down, putting his head in Lance’s lap. He muttered, “Nothing to worry about.”

The yawn infected Lance, reminded him of how tired he was. It had been an extremely long day. Not to mention all the blood he had lost thanks to Allura. His eyelids flickered.

“Move over babe.” Gently, Lance pushed at Keith’s head. Keith obligingly lifted it long enough for Lance to spread his legs out and twist around so he could lay down next to Keith on the hard rock just outside the cave. Keith put his head back down, this time on Lance’s stomach. They looked out at the vista together.

Lance tried to take it in; the weight of Keith’s head, the flutterings like rippling grass in his stomach that that contact caused. He was greedy for these moments; Lance wanted centuries and centuries of them.

Slowly, like walking out into the ocean, he fell asleep.

 

**

 

_Lance stood over a young boy, crying and curled into a ball, tucked in a tiny, rocky crevasse at the base of one of the hills near his home. He knew without doubt that the boy was a younger version of himself._

_“Get up!” Lance yelled, but his voice was muffled as if underwater. In fact, the entire dream was coated with a layer of blue, as if their world was submerged with liquid air. His actions were sluggish and delayed, and when he reached up, Lance found his hair floated as if it, too was underwater._

_He screamed again at his younger self, but the other Lance didn’t budge. There was a frantic drum beat in Lance’s chest._ Move, _it said with each painful throbbing._ Move, move move.

_Lance turned and began to job in slow motion up the hill. It was tiring, like walking through molasses. Blood trickled down from a wound in his forehead. All the sounds of the world were muffled, too. He felt at the same time electric and exhausted._

_Finally, he crested the hill._

_Before him lay his life, his everything._

_And it was burning to the ground._

_The main cabin lay behind him, the direction he had came, but down below were the stables. This was where his father stood in front of an army of mounted men. They were speaking but Lance couldn’t make out the words. Flames licked the windows of the stables, and from inside, horses screamed. That much, he could hear._

_The men were arguing with his father. They were all waving around long rifles, gesturing towards the house._

_A small hand took his own; Lance looked down and saw his younger self clutching his hand, staring way away at his father, crying._

_One of the mounted men raised a rifle at his father. The cocking was impossibly loud in the dream world._

_In another second his father would be dead._

_Somebody screamed; it was his mother, running from the house where she had left Lance, and hope surged through his breast. Mama would make everything okay. She always did what was right. Now all of these men would see._

_But those were the feelings of the little boy, travelling through his held hands. Older Lance knew better. Even so, that didn’t stop the fear._

_Mama waved her arms furiously; her hair was coming out of its bun, her shirt untucked. Lance’s father made a grab for her arms but she dodged him, got closer to the leader of the men. She spat in his face. The leader, the largest man Lance had ever seen, backhanded his mother. She smashed into the dirt._

_His father yelled._

_And yelled again when the first bullet ripped through his heart._

_The yelling stopped when the second one traveled through his brain._

_Both Lances began to tremble._

_The body of Papa fell beside Mama just as she was beginning to stir. The large man dismounted and grabbed her by her hair, dragged her upright, all of them swimming in this bloody ocean of a dream together. Laughing, he kicked open the door to the burning stable and threw her inside, then waved his hand. The other men swarmed around the stable, boarding up the windows, barring the door, laughing all the while._

_The blue flames danced in the water-air like a coven of witches, celebrating their feast of his mother. Lance knew he should do something. Anything._

_But fear had swallowed him whole. He could not move. He had seen what had happened when his parents tried to be heroes._

_The mounted men, finished with their task, began to ride away, leaving the body of Papa out for the coyotes._

_Now there was nobody left. Lance could go and free Mama. She was still alive._

_His limbs were held tight by that monster of fear, though. He looked at the little boy, urging him to go and help Mama because Lance couldn’t. But the boy didn’t move. He just stood and stared. He had learned his lesson and learned it well._

_“Listen closer,” Mama had always told him while teaching him new things._

_But he still should have moved. Hid. Instead of hiding, he stood. And as the men turned to leave one of them shouted out: he had caught site of the boy on the hill._

_Another shot rang out. A moment later Lance felt fire shoot through his arm. Finally, finally this prompted him to move and he stumbled back down the hill, crying and bleeding, clutching his numb arm._

_He ran in the night. Tripped over weeds and rocks. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but Lance found himself back in that deep place under the hill with the glowing blue stones. His blood dripped on the crystals._

_They were worried about him. Their soft glow throbbed at his touch; they wanted to help him._

_Lance, trembling, set his head down on the crystals, and his body filled with warmth and energy._

_And so the little boy crept away, back into the hole in the hill. There he curled up, put his hands over his ears, and pretended he could not hear screaming._

 

**

 

When Lance woke up, gasping for air, he was alone.

The hot desert sun had pushed its way over the lip of the cave and was now warming his bare chest. A breath of dry wind ruffled through his hair. And even without looking around he knew something was wrong.

“Keith?” Lance called, pulling back his rough blanket. His boyfriend was no longer laying beside him. This couldn’t be good. Something was wrong, wrong, wrong. “Allura?

Lance stood and something slid off him, clanking on the stone floor. That dread feeling welled up inside his throat, clawing its way through his nostrils and his brain, and all he could think was, _no._ Bending down, Lance scooped up the golden pocket watch he had given back to Keith. He squeezed it in his hand. Looked out across the empty horizon.

Lance knew exactly what the watch meant, and he hated his stupid, heroic, lying, idiotic brute of a boyfriend for it.

“Keith,” Lance whispered. “What have you done?”

 

**

 

Zarkon listened to the report in his office in Texas, back turned to the attendant, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window over steepled hands. And as he listened, his frown grew deeper and deeper to match his black mood.

When the report was finished, he frowned deeper. “And you say this was all the work of the Ghost of the West.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’m curious,” he said to the open sky.  “How did a ghost shoot my guards? How did a ghost ransack a carriage containing an employee who wasn’t supposed to be on the caravan, or in Texas, or anywhere other than his office in Chicago? And how did a ghost set fire to three of my carts, let loose six horses, and destroy tens of thousands of dollars worth of mining equipment?”

“I--sir, I, um...well, the term “Ghost” is only a moniker--”

The unending little words ceased to flow from the attendant’s mouth, and this was because his windpipe was crushed in Zarkon’s grasp. He lifted the little man off the ground, tightening his grip like a boa constrictor.

“Please,” the attendant gasped, “don’t shoot the messenger.”

Zarkon sneered. “Don’t worry. You will not be shot.”

He pivoted, and hurled the man through the grandfather clock sitting against the wall, the glass and wood shattering in a spectacular crash. There was a wheeze of pain. And then silence.

Truth be told, it was not the reports of the Ghost of the West’s resurfacing that concerned him. Petty bandits, Zarkon could deal with. Nor was it the loss of the mining equipment; it wasn’t as if mining was his true purpose in Altea anyway. In truth those riches were little more than a party favor compared to the main event.

No, it was this kidnapped employee who concerned him. Recently there had been trouble with the Blades of Montana, a band of insolent defectors intent on bringing down his company from the inside, on the grounds of protesting the very bloodshed that had brought them all prosperity. Zarkon had been in this game a long, long time, and he knew when he smelled a rat. The Ghost of the West had nothing to gain by kidnapping a paper pusher. No, somebody else was pulling strings on this stage.

“Tell me,” he asked the messenger who was picking himself up from the wreckage of the clock, “what is the name of our poor missing employee?”

“K-Keith Kogane-Shirogane, sir.”

The name rang a bell in Zarkon’s head. He continued to study the city below his window.

“Kogane-Shirogane...I believe that is the name of my Strategies Divisions manager.” The messenger struggled to his feet, wiping his bloodied nose. Zarkon turned to him, gritting his teeth. “Get out of my sight. And fetch me Haggar.”

The messenger nodded and scurried from the room, forgetting to shut the doors on his way out.

Zarkon’s mind turned. There were, it seemed, other pieces on this board he had not been aware of. A piece of glass beneath his boot. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. Somebody’s machinations were whirring under his own. It seemed too great a coincidence, so close to the completion of his plan; it all reeked of Blade business, and Zarkon was beginning to sketch a picture of his first suspect. Very soon now the beast would be ready. Zarkon did not intend to let anyone stand in the way of his revenge.

The doors to his office clicked shut.

“Master.”

“Ah, Haggar. I trust you have recovered well?”

“As well as can be expected, yes.”

He turned away from the window, to the skeletal woman that stood before him, and told her his thoughts. She listened, silent, long fingers moving ceaselessly over the hem of her sun blanched rags. Suddenly, her eyes widened.

“Shirogane. It was he who ordered his younger brother to supervise our journey.”

This was news to Zarkon. He gritted his teeth. A rat, indeed. He picked up a small paperweight on his desk, a little black lion wrought of metal, with obsidian eyes.

“Master, that is not all.” Haggar stepped forward, revealing a small piece of paper in her gnarled hands. “A telegram came from Chicago this morning. It seems the elder Shirogane has not reported to his office for several days now. He paid off a man to cover his position. When this man, Antok, was questioned, it was discovered he had ties to the Blades of Montan--”

The obsidian eyes glittered at Zarkon as he turned the lion over in his hands. A pulse of fire coursed through his breast. He stood, twisted, and hurled the lion through the great window behind his desk. The glass pieces fell in a spectacular array, glittering in the sunlight, flashing in the sunlight as they fell like deadly snow to the street below.

Breathing heavily, he faced Haggar again.

“Saddle my horse and gather twelve of my best guards,” Zarkon growled. “And pause your awakening rituals. Ready your poisons. I need you with me.” Shirogane may have evaporated, but as for his little brother, Zarkon knew the boy’s last location.

The breeze blowing in through the broken window caressed Zarkon’s cheek. It felt almost like a memory. He contemplated the wide open sky above Houston. People were beginning to gather on the sidewalk below to inspect the object that had fallen from the sky. Eventually, Zarkon thought, all bugs would crawl out of the woodwork, trying to hard to protect the illusion of their peace. Of their happiness.

“And Haggar, send a message to our depot.”

“What shall I tell them?”

Their happiness laughed at him, and he hated them for it.

“Begin final preparations on the line to Altea. It seems our timetable has just been moved up.”

 


	3. Today, Yesterday, Last Year

_Today._

“You,” Pidge said over the pitcher of beer, “look terrible.”

Lance didn’t have the energy to argue with her; besides, she was probably right. With a groan, he slid into the wooden chair. There were so many things he hated about his body right now. There was the mural of bruises and knife cuts covering pretty much everywhere, the purple bruises on his throat that were way more painful than Keith’s hickies. What else? Oh, Hunk’s clothes didn’t fit him right, and he was pretty sure at least one of his ribs was broken. And worst of all, his T-zone was absolutely dripping with skin grease. It was almost unbearable.

Hunk leaned over and enveloped Lance in a world-class hug.

“Ouch! Hunk! The ribs?”

“Sorry.” Hunk backed away. “But can I just say again, I’m glad you’re okay man. We saw you driving the wagon and we saw you get shot—”

“And then this crazy Amazon jumped out of nowhere onto the cart and dragged Keith out of it, and Keith pointed a gun at himself and then she took both of you before we could get down there!” Pidge sliced her hand through the air to emphasize the point. “It was freaking insane.”

“Uh, can you not look so excited about my kidnapping?”

“You must be so embarrassed, Lance. Think about it! The Ghost of the West fainting in front of a—”

“But we wouldn’t tell anyone,” Hunk cut in over Pidge. “We’re just glad you’re alive, right Pidge?”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “Right. Totally.” And then, under her breath: “Do you even have a cool scar?”

Lance pointed at her. “Yes. But mean people don’t get to see my awesome bullet wounds. Anyway, we have a few worse issues right now.”

“Oh, so we finally get to know what’s going on?” Pidge swatted his hand away, then grabbed the beer pitcher and poured herself a drink.

Lance hesitated. They were knee deep in the barely controlled chaos of the small town’s tavern; grizzled, shady-looking types drank at the bar while other groups ran games of poker with pistols concealed beneath wooden tables. Baudey women squeezed into too-small dresses giggled from the bannisters above, smoking long cigarettes and applied lipstick and waved handkerchiefs, or busied themselves in the laps of much older gentlemen. The place smelled of tobacco and alcohol and sweat and gunpowder and normally Lance would have loved it….but today his thoughts were too tangled, too focused on the doom pushed deeper through his veins with every heartbeat to properly enjoy the many pleasures of Texas.

Lance accepted the pitcher from Pidge and downed the rest of the beer. While he drank, he thought: thought of how angry he was with Keith for lying to him, for going with Allura when he had promised he wouldn’t.

He thought of the worry that coated the anger like cold oil.

Finally, he slammed the pitcher down, belched long and loud, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

“We, my friends, are going to rescue my boyfriend from Allura and his own dumb self. Nobody gets to take Keith hostage, not even himself.”

 

**

 

_Yesterday._

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” Lance said, shirtless and leaning back on his sun-tanning rock. Lance was a firm believer in the philosophy that beauty should not be covered nor unequally tanned. At the very least, he hoped it would disarm the Galra currently riding their horses around him in a circle; the tactic had worked rather well with Keith on at least two prior occasions. He tried his best to look nonchalant; arms folded behind his head, not a care in Texas.

Hunk had remarked one time how little sense it made that Lance was so chiseled when he basically survived off a diet of baked beans and alcohol, to which Lance had indignantly replied that alcohol was made by fermenting fruits and grains which meant a great purveyor of wines and whiskeys and various ciders such as himself was, in fact, covering most of his food groups.

By the time Lance had noticed the Galra on the horizon, they were already much too close to run from. Not that he really wanted to. He had suspected they would be hot on his trail after the little canyon incident. Besides, if he played his cards right and didn’t get himself killed, Lance might just be able to get some help from these guys. Better to stick to what had always worked for him: his bod and his bluffing.

It didn’t take long for the horses to surround him; they thundered in a circle like a living storm of flesh and dust. Finally the Galra stopped with the show and dismounted. They eyed him warily: _good,_ Lance thought. _Nervous people might hesitate before shooting me._

“You,” said one of the guards, a sour-looking old woman who seemed familiar for some reason. “Lance McClain.” It wasn’t a question.

“I prefer ‘Lance McClain: The Ghost of the West’.” Lance grinned. The woman did not grin back. And there was something really prickling at the back of his mind about this lady: she wore her grey-white hair loose and her sharp face was craggy with age, her skin leathery and wrinkled like an old wallet.

With practiced ease, the skeletally-thin woman slid off her horse, casting a long shadow over Lance’s body. He noticed her eyes flick up and down his chest, unimpressed.

“I am Haggar,” the woman rasped, “and you will listen to me very closely: President Zarkon of the Galra Mining Company would like a word with you,”

Haggar bent down to pick up a sizeable rock, about as big as Lance’s fist.

Lance laughed, long and loud and hopefully not too fake-ly, trying to drown out a little voice telling him that it would be in his best interest to remember who this lady was. “Well, isn’t that a happy coincidence? It just so happens I was looking to trade a word or two with Zarkon myself.”

“I am pleased to hear it.” Haggar smirked, shambling toward him, feeling the weight of her rock. What she said next made Lance’s stomach drop.

“I have orders to deliver you to Zarkon. However, those orders say nothing about the state of your health. On a scale of one to ten, how much would you say you like eating rocks?”

 _Uh-oh._ Now Lance remembered her: this was the Galra goon who had shot at him and chased him with such fury, the same one he had driven into the canyon wall after his clever little one-liner.

“Um,” he gulped. “One?”

The old woman bared her teeth— _were they sharped? Jesus, these people were insane—a_ nd raised her rock high over Lance’s head.

“Wrong answer.”

 

**

 

_Last year._

Chicago on a Saturday night, Lance thought, was like a child: loud, exciting, a bit smelly, and extremely violent.

He whistled as he walked down the street. Horses and carriages raced by on the dusty path, eager to be home before full dark. Hands in pockets, neatly sidestepping the drunks staggering about, Lance headed for the best bar in town: The Advisor. Known for its pristine and expensive front, The Advisor hid something even more valuable in its depths, namely, a fighting ring. And it was this ring that Lance wanted nothing more than to blow his purse on. He and the night were young; why not enjoy the little extra cash he had from his latest job?

Before Hunk’s worrywort voice could appear in his head, Lance rounded the street corner and swung into the door of the bar.

“My main man Coran!” Lance called into the room. The Advisor had something virtually every other dump Lance had drank in lacked: _swank._ From the shiny black piano in the corner to the filigreed pillars to the oak counter so smooth it could trip a spider, Coran’s pride and joy was a tight ship. Tonight, there was a tall young woman draped across the piano, singing mournfully in the sweetest voice Lance had ever heard. No weapons were allowed in the bar; the atmosphere was usually low-key since nobody had to worry about getting shot over a bad hand of poker. Here that blood was reserved for the basement.

Coran waved him over from behind the counter. A glorious wall of every kind of alcohol Lance could think of stood behind him, sparkling like a sky full of sippable stars. As always, Coran and his mustache were impeccable.

“Lance! So nice to see you again.” Coran poured a drink for Lance as he slid into a bar stool. “I was beginning to think one of your little heists had gone the wrong way.”

“Gone the wrong way? _My_ heists? Coran, I’m hurt.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I just tend to worry when my favorite customers disappear for weeks on end.”

“Don’t twist your mustache all sad-like,” Lance said, taking a swig of the brandy. The alcohol was clean and crisp, just like everything else in the place. “If I came in here more than once a month my bank account would be emptier than my—”

“Head? You and I both know you don’t trust banks enough to keep your money with them anyway, young man.” Coran flashed him a white-toothed grin and topped off his glass, leaning his elbows on the bar. “So, where are the other two devils tonight? Off charming some poor lass out of her father’s coin?”

“I guess. They’re certainly not breaking and entering a Galra bank.”

A shadow passed across Coran’s face and the music seemed to dim for a moment.

“Lance, I’ve told you a hundred times; _stay away from those men.”_

“Please. They’re just like any other big lazy corp; too much money to notice a couple thousand missing here and there. It’s fine. Besides, all their money is stolen from people on the frontier anyway. Just think of it like we’re stealing it back.”

“It’s not their morals that concern me,” Coran said, eyes darting across the room. His voice lowered conspiratorially. “If you knew what that monstrous company really does out there, what they really want—”

Something oily crawled in Lance’s memory. He pushed back from the bar, downing the rest of his drink as he stood. “Sorry Coran, I can’t stay to chat all night. Got places to be, boys and girls to kiss.”

He could see, through his smile, the worry and hurt mixing on Coran’s face. But something in Lance’s mind, something wounded, was veering him away from this particular topic. Tonight, he had other things to worry about. Tonight, Lance was looking for extra muscle for a job.

Lance slid his glass across the smooth-as-ice counter back to Coran. “Are you going to show me the way downstairs, or should I show myself?”

Coran’s eyebrows rose in indignation. The only thing required to manipulate the man was a little bit of insult to his honor as a host. He raised a section of the bar and breezed through, hands held behind his back. “You wound me, young master Lance. Please, right this way.”

 

**

 

_Today._

“So let me get this straight: you want to kidnap Keith. Again. But this time we have to fight some crazy woman who can beat the snot out _both_ of you?”

“Yep, sound about right.”

He took in the looks on their faces; Pidge rolling her eyes, Hunk the picture of worry and doubt.

“Wait, but didn’t you say something about Allura using Keith as leverage against the Galra?” Hunk leaned across the table. “If we take him, Zarkon will destroy that town and everyone in it. They won’t stand a chance.”

Lance sighed. This was what he had worried about. For a brief time he had contemplated lying to his friends, telling them that Allura had kidnapped Keith for some reason and that they had to steal him back. But in the end, he knew it was futile; they were too smart to be fooled by that excuse. No, better to just lay everything on the table and get over it.

“Look,” he said, “I know. I know that it seems bad to take away these people’s opportunity, but we can’t think about it like that. Keith isn’t a bargaining chip. He’s my boyfriend. And your guys’ friend. And he doesn’t realize the danger he’s in. If we don’t get to him before Zarkon, we won’t see him again. Period. So yeah, I know I’m asking a lot of you. But please, if you’ve ever been my friends, please help me with this. If we can find a way to help Altea along the way, all the better.” _And if not, no harm to us._

Pidge twirled her spectacles in her hands, which meant she was thinking hard. Analyzing him with those bright eyes of hers. Would she help? Or would this be the day she finally walked away?

Finally, she spoke. “So were you just going to march into this town, guns blazing? Or do you have an actual plan?”

A wave of relief washed through Lance. He grinned. “Pidge, my fair lady, you do me an injustice. I always have a plan.” Lance turned to Hunk, who was fiddling with his cuticles. “Hunk?”

“I’ve helped you pull off a lot of illegal stuff, man. But it was always against the big guy, you know? Hurting the bad people. But this...if we do this, we’ll be responsible for innocent people getting hurt.”

 

_Fire. Horses and humans screaming. Lance curling tighter and tighter into a ball._

 

He squeezed the bridge of his nose. _I don’t care. I don’t care. If I try to save them, I’ll end up like Papa._ The tide of his memories was coming, just as strong as the poison; Lance could feel it. But he couldn’t lose control now.

“I know,” he said softly.

Hunk looked up. “But you said Keith doesn’t know the whole situation? That if he gives himself up, he’ll…”

“Yeah.”

“Promise me we’ll try to help Altea.”

 

_“Promise me you won’t do anything...Keith-y.”_

_“What is that supposed to mean?”_

_“You know what it means. Promise.”_

_“I...I promise I won’t.”_

 

It broke Lance’s heart to lie to him. “I promise.”

“Then I’m in.”

Lance couldn’t meet Hunk’s eyes, so he nodded towards the deck of cards beside Hunk’s elbow. Hunk passed them over, and with a flick of his wrist, Lance began dealing around the table, making sure to give himself the best hand. He ignored the slight pains throughout his body, which much have been the poison beginning to take root.

Zarkon told him he had time. He could do this.

“Pidge,” Lance asked, looking out from over his cards, trying to decide which hand to play. “I seem to remember the carts in Keith’s convoy carrying a hefty amount of our favorite boom-boom powder. You didn’t happen to help yourself to a little after I put on our show, did you?”

“Of course I did.” She flashed a feral grin. “Why do you ask?”

 

**

 

_Yesterday._

Lance came around under a stream of piss.

He was reasonably sure it was piss. For one, nobody would waste the water out here in the wastelands of Texas. For another, it smelled remarkably like piss.

Spluttering and coughing, Lance shook his head and tried to stand, but only made it to his knees; he was blindfolded and his hands were bound behind his back. What sounded like several people standing over and around him laughed.

A foot connected with his ribs. Lance cried out and doubled over. Another kick sent him sprawling in the dirt.

“Enough.” A low voice severed the laughter like a guillotine. Something cold crawled up the base of Lance’s spine, something that told him getting pissed on was preferable to meeting the owner of this voice. “Get up.”

Lance got up.

The blindfold was yanked from his eyes. In came the searing sun, beating down mercilessly on his retinas. Lance squinted up at the mountain of a man looming over him, not even with the decency to block out the sun.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Father Christmas?” Lance coughed blood onto the man’s very expensive-looking leather boot.

Without warning, said boot slammed into his jaw and Lance careened backward in the dust, pain blazing through his face. He certainly wasn’t going to be popular at the bars for a few weeks. _If you make it out of here at all, you dumb idiot._

“Let me make something very clear to you: I am not here to waste time.” The man turned Lance over to face him with the toe of his blood-covered boot. “And I do not care about your life. You are insignificant. Your continued existence is due only to the fact that you are, at best, marginally useful to me...for now. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was going to be a test on this material toda—”

A massive hand wrapped around Lance’s throat like a python and lifted him high, high into the air. His face was brought close to the man’s; from this front row seat Lance could make out every clogged pore on the guy’s face. Didn’t he know what moisturizer was?

“I,” the man’s breath, Lance’s delirious mind noted, was surprisingly pleasant-smelling. “Am President Zarkon of the Galra Mining Company, and I will not accept your insolence, _boy._ ”

Lance could only wheeze his witty but inaudible retort. Black spots danced before his eyes. It was here, half naked and lifted off the ground by a man who looked like he weighed more than Blue, that Lance finally began to feel like he _might_ be losing control of the situation.

He was vaguely aware of Zarkon’s minions taking in the scene, especially that one crone. Lance hoped with some measure of malice that there was as big a lump forming on her forehead as there was his.

“Now, I came here to ask you some questions” Zarkon said, squeezing tighter. “Yesterday afternoon you and your band of grubby children attacked my caravan and kidnapped one of my employees. Why?”

Lance coughed in the dust. “I don’t know. Why do I do anything? For money. And maybe to piss you off.”

Zarkon’s grip loosened and Lance slipped through his fingers onto the dirt once more, clawing at his throat, gasping for air. Dust choked his throat, and the tears streaming down his face stung his sunburned skin. That stupid leather boot kicked Lance over again and then pressed down on his chest, crushing him into the ground. Zarkon stood over him like a triumphant jerkwad.

“Let’s start over. You kidnapped one of my employees, the brother of a suspected insurgent. You destroyed my property. Killed my hired hands. _Tell. Me. Why._ What value does Kogane have to you?”

 

_He kissed Keith, lightly, on the lips, and watched him fully come awake. In an instant Keith was mirroring Lance’s smile._

_“Good morning.” Then Lance was being kissed back, and wow, he could let himself sink into this feeling again, into the sheets and their skin touching and—_

 

“Nothing,” Lance said as convincingly as possible. “Never met Keith in my life.”

A deep smile settled into Zarkon’s ugly face. _Uh-oh._ He shouldn't be smiling. Why was he smiling?

“I never told you the boy’s first name.”

_Well, fuck._

“You know him. Intimately.” Zarkon grabbed Lance’s jaw, yanking his head this way and that. “Yes, I see now. It’s all here on your face. I see everything.”

Lance struggled to get the words out through his squished cheeks. “I think that’s my acne you’re seeing.”

“Quiet!” Another strike, another flash of white light followed by black followed by vision. Lance moaned, and then was cut off when Zarkon’s hand squeezed his throat. “What is he to you? Friend? Companion? Or something...more? _Ah._ ”

Lance hated himself for being so easy to read. It was like Zarkon and that freaky ass Haggar lady could practically see into his mind.

“You will go to Altea. You will bring me that boy. Am I clear?”

But he couldn’t give up yet. Lance coughed and hacked until he found his voice. “Okay, okay, yes! I’ll go. I’ll do whatever you say.”

Then the boot came down, crushing Lance’s ribcage. He felt the bones begin to bend at an unhealthy angle.

“Look, I’m not lying. I’ll go. Just stop hurting me. Please.” Lance grimaced up at Zarkon, the wheels of his brain spinning. Now things had gotten tricky. He should never have given away himself and Keith, but that couldn’t be helped. And Lance knew that if he wanted to make it out of here alive, he had to do what he had came here to do: make Zarkon believe he had won. Placate him. And to be honest Lance hadn’t been exactly sure how he was going to do that. At least, not until now. The Ghost of the West’s best ideas always came to him under pressure.

Lance turned his idea over in his head. It was dumb, but it might work. Emphasis on the “might”.

If he could just make Zarkon believe he had been successful in conscripting Lance, Lance could go grab Keith and hightail it out as far west as the horizon would take them, double-crossing Zarkon in the process. The original plan had been to steal Keith, ransom him, and steal him again. Lance had been betting on Zarkon willing to shell out a whole lotta cash to protect the secrets of his Strategies Division, what with Keith being the brother of its leader and all. But it looked like Lance was going to lose out on that money now; if he double crossed Zarkon, there would be no polite ransom check being cut for him at the Galra headquarters in New York.   _Yeah, but at least Keith will be alive. Not that he’s doing much to deserve it at the moment._

But something was niggling at the back of Lance’s mind. Something that Zarkon had mentioned earlier about Keith’s brother.

Lance smiled pleasantly up at Zarkon, trying to make him believe him, trying find a way out. Something here didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t Zarkon simply marching into Altea and dragging Keith out himself? Lance’s first thought was the Zarkon’s fear of the law: as powerful as the magnate was, even he couldn’t raze whole towns and get away with it. And by that same token, he couldn’t let Allura maneuver him into a legally binding contract. But then that didn’t make sense, because why was Keith worth signing a contract for? He was just some higher-up’s little brother who himself held a minor position in the Galra Mining Company.

Wait.

 

_“All my life I’ve known what my mother was a part of. She helped build the Galra Empire.” Keith put his hand around Lance’s shoulder, drawing him in closer. “And even though Shiro is trying to fight from the inside…”_

 

Lance felt his stomach drop. _Oh, fuck._

Zarkon could be afraid that Keith might rather die than come back under Galra control without helping Altea. And there could only be one reason Zarkon needed Keith alive and well.

Keith had never told Lance much about his family. Sure, Lance knew the hazy outline: Keith’s mother had been loyal to Zarkon, had helped build the Galra Mining Company from nothing to the giant it was today. His older brother was some higher up in the Company. But beyond that, he was flying blind. When they had made their plans to steal away Keith from Zarkon, Lance had just assumed he could ransom Keith back, make some money, and then steal him _again_ and run for real. The thing was that he had never really given much thought to how Keith had gotten all the way to Texas in the first place. All Keith had told him was where he would be, and when. What if…

Lance blinked. What if Keith had been making his escape much earlier than he had thought? He hadn’t given it much thought before, but there was no real reason for a low-ranking Galra official to be riding the convoy out to inspect the potential mining site of Altea.

There were stories Lance had overheard in bars, around campfires shared with travelers on the wide plains under endless skies. Tales of a band of spies within the Galra Mining Company, working to bring it down from the inside.

Some called them the Blades of Montana.

Suddenly, the pieces began to fall into place. Lance’s already sinking stomach hit the bottom of his gut. Haggar might never have known who it was she was protecting inside that carriage. As long as her orders had come from a high place—say, Keith’s older brother—she would have followed those orders without protest. That must be why she was so pissed; Keith’s brother had probably assigned her to protect Keith and she had had to follow orders, never questioning the fact that Keith should never have been on the trip in the first place. When Zarkon had found out what she had helped make happen, he probably hadn’t been a happy camper.

Lance didn’t like this, any of it. Keith was playing a much bigger game than he had let on. Zarkon said he suspected Shiro of being an insurgent, which probably meant the Blades of Montanta. Great. Lance had never accounted for any sort of resistance meddling in his plans. Worse, by involving Shiro and the Blades of Montana--if that’s really who Shiro was working for--Keith had introduced the Blades as another player to a game where it was crucial to know every piece on the board. And now Lance was going to pay for it.

Lance tried to ignore the molten pain roaring in his slowly cracking ribs. He had to tread carefully, carefully. He refused to believe what he suspected Keith of. Keith wouldn’t use him like that. He wouldn’t.

...would he?

Zarkon put more weight onto the already unbearable force on Lance’s sternum. Under that boot Lance squirmed like a pinned butterfly. The sun beat down, relentless in its blinding mockery. “Once you bring me that boy, I will torture him. I will learn everything he knows, and if he knows nothing, he will lead me to his treacherous brother. And then I will destroy the Blades.” _So it’s true. It’s true, and Keith lied._ “And you’re going to help me to do it.”

It struck him like a slap to the face: _Papa, surrounded by the mounted men, shot to death while they laughed._ Lance had never found out who they were, nor set out to avenge his parents’ death; no, he had just learned his lesson, slinking away like a cowardly animal. Now here he was now, his life teetering like that of his father’s. Papa had tried to save everyone he could, to stand up to evil.

That thought, then, that Lance had thought a thousand times: he was not his papa. Papa could have stood up to Zarkon. A good man would die right now at Zarkon’s hand, would refuse to retrieve Keith and thus give Altea and the Blade of Montana both a chance at survival. Keith didn’t know what was coming for him. He didn’t know how close Zarkon was to piecing together the puzzle of Montana. In Keith’s head, if he gave himself up for Altea, Lance could just steal him away again, no harm no foul.

But that wasn’t the way this world worked. If Keith let himself be traded, he would be tortured and killed.

And now Lance faced the choice his father had: he could spit in Zarkon’s face. If Zarkon had captured Shiro, there would be no reason to go after Keith. Which meant that for all Zarkon’s blustering, Shiro had slipped through the Galra’s hands. And with any luck, that might give Lance the tiniest amount of leverage.

By refusing to get Keith, Lance would force Zarkon to broker a trade with Allura: Keith for Altea’s immunity. Of course, Zarkon could always march on Altea using some legal loophole that would free him of the authorities’ ire, but he must have known Keith would give his life for the town’s defense, for a show of defiance to the Company. And if that happened, Zarkon would be no closer to rooting out the Blades.

By dying now, Lance would force Zarkon to choose: the riches beneath Altea, or the death of the Blades of Montana. With any luck, Keith would be able to pry open the weakness in that indecision and escape.

A good man would choose to die right here, right now, and either or both an innocent town or a heroic corporate espionage would survive as a direct result of his actions.

But Lance wasn’t a good man.

He hadn’t survived this long by doing the right thing. Somewhere inside, he already knew his choice. It had never really been a decision to begin with. He would follow Zarkon’s orders and everyone would die. Everyone, that was, except for Lance and Keith; he knew it was still possible to find a way to spirit Keith away from all of this in the process. Altea would burn and Zarkon would probably track down Shiro eventually, but that wasn’t Lance’s problem. Lance wasn’t sure if he believed in some higher power in the sky, but at this exact moment he imagined he felt a pair of eyes boring into the back of his head from that general vicinity. He frowned. _What would you have me do? If I try to play the hero, Zarkon will find a way to get what he wants anyway, and I’ll be dead for nothing._ At least if Lance followed orders, he had a shot at pulling something off to save Keith. He could live with the souls of the dead screaming in his ears. He already did every day.

_And if you can’t save Keith?_

The inky thought pooled like blood in a wound. It was his own voice, his own tarnished and torn spirit reflected back at him, the visage that he abhorred. It whispered, _would you let him die to save yourself? After all, you’ve only known him for a few years. What is he to you, really?_

 _Stop it. I can save us both. I_ can.

“Oh? What is this?”

“I’ll help you, okay? Deal?”

Zarkon took his boot off Lance’s chest. The relief was enormous, like cool water pouring down his head after a day riding Blue. Lance closed his eyes in the bliss of the feeling.

A bird screamed overhead.

Kneeling down, Zarkon drew a knife from his belt. “You stand for nothing. I have peered into your mind. I have seen your kind before. Too cowardly to accept the lot life has drawn for you, too afraid of your fate to face it.”

Slowly, slowly, Zarkon traced the knifepoint down Lance’s bare chest, leaving a trail of fire where it teased his skin apart. With his other hand, Zarkon drew from his jacket a plain stoppered bottle. Without ceremony he bit the stopper off and dipped the knife in. Withdrawn, it was coated with a dripping clear liquid the consistency of honey.

“A vicious little poison, concocted by Haggar herself.” The old woman standing beside Zarkon grinned, baring her pointed teeth. “Once in your veins, it will lay dormant for days, slowly building in strength and ferocity while it kills you. Thanks to your little stunt with the caravan, we will now be traveling to Altea by rail. So you will bring the younger Kogane-Shirogane, unescorted, to the rail line station several miles outside of Altea. If you do this, I will contemplate granting you the antidote. But if you run, you _will_ die. This, boy, is fate come knocking. How will you answer?”

Lance felt his stomach fall out from under him, like the chair he had been standing on had finally collapsed. His plan had gone up in smoke. All of his charm, all of his dashing smiles and beguiling words had been cut down like cobwebs by this beast. He had nothing left. No more tricks up his sleeve. He wasn’t even _wearing_ sleeves.

Still, he gritted his teeth. Even if he felt like pissing himself, he would be damned if he was gonna do it in front of Zarkon. From where her reins were held by several Galra grunts, Blue whinnied in alarm, rearing up to kick at the air.

Zarkon angled the knife below Lance’s bellybutton. A new wave of fear coursed through him and Lance asked himself again just how smart it had been to go into this little shebang shirtless. Had showing off his abs really been worth it?

“Now,” Zarkon said, just as the vulture flying overhead screamed again. Lance glared up at it. _I’m not dead yet, asshole._ “Now, you will know pain.”

 

**

 

_Last year._

The big man was going to lose the knife fight.

In the dim under-room of The Advisor, Lance orbited the ring of bystanders, hands in pockets, using his height to peer over their heads to watch the battle. In the center of the circle stood two men, both breathing heavily. One of them was massive: a good head or two higher than even Lance, his muscles bulging out of his grimy shirt, face red with beer and anger.

The other man was fucking hot.

 _Are you kidding me?_ Try as he might, Lance couldn’t take his eyes off the guy. Long black hair stuck to his face and neck in sticky spikes, a face with sharp, high cheekbones and a variety of other pleasant features. The man stood half-crouched, holding a medium-length blade in a reverse grip across his chest, staring at his opponent with a glare so intense it could probably melt through bank vaults. Or hearts. Whichever.

But the most interesting thing about the man was the way he was dressed. There were no roughspun, dirty, dull-colored fabrics of the common street scum of Chicago on him. No, his pants were sleekly cut and black, his button-down white shirt crisp (if sweat-stained), and his tight vest outlined a slender but well-muscled body that Lance had looked up and down at least twenty times since he had entered the room. This kid was no ordinary street scum; he came from money. Or had at least mugged someone who did.

Without warning, the smaller man darted forward. To anyone else his knife strike would have seemed invisible, but Lance knew to look for these things; he caught the glint of the metal slicing through the air and then through the big guy’s bicep, trailing behind it a line of blood drops through the air like the red tail of a comet. A moment later the man’s nervous system caught up and he yelled. Smacked his hand over the wound.

Both Lance and the dark-haired man smirked.

The instinct to cover the wound was a mistake. A vulnerability. And the man took it, lashing out like a viper. Another cut on the opponent’s arm. Across his chest. Thigh. Shredding his clothes to ribbons, a staccato cheer from the inebriated crowd with each bloodletting. Employees of Coran’s moved through the bodies, taking bets and collecting cash. Even the ladies done up in their respectable finery seemed thirsty for injury.

“Yield!” Yelled the smaller man. His opponent grunted in response, but didn’t follow orders and earned a slash across his cheek for it.

Lance frowned. The guy was clearly playing with his food.

More blood splattered on the floor. Lance was transfixed by the sweat running down the man’s face, the see-through shirt sticking to his body, the glow of the gas lamps lighting up the room like a fever dream. Everything was bathed in a yellow haze of light and pain and desire, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Yield!” Cut. Scream.

“Yield!”

“ _Yield!_ ”

The crowd fell deathly silent. Something went sailing through the air, bounced wetly on the floor a time or two, and rolled to a stop at a lady’s pointed shoe. Slowly, slowly, she lifted her skirt and bent down to get a better look. A moment later her mouth parted in a red O. She screamed.

Lance didn’t blink an eye at the severed finger. The opponent, however, was not so suave. He fell to the ground as the crowd began to roar, first in disgust and then in righteous glory at the sport of it. Money changed hands, fortunes were won and lost, and the drunken revelry thrived.

The younger man stood perfectly still, knife dripping blood. And then he did was very few people had ever been able to: he caught Lance off guard. Without warning his eyes flicked up and caught Lance starring—Lance felt the force of that gaze like a steam locomotive plowing through his chest. His cheeks flushed, his mouth dried out. _Ok, do you really have to be that hot? Is that really fair?_ After that, Lance’s thoughts kind of...short circuited. He was incapable of any action aside from holding that molten gaze.

And then, without further ado, the man turned away and melted into the crowd.

 

**

 

_Today._

Pidge pointed the loaded pistol at Lance, cocked it, and looked down the sights.

“Just for the record,” she said, adjusting her glasses, “I’ve helped you do a lot of really, really dumb stuff. But this definitely is the dumbest.”

The three of them, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk, stood around the remnants of their campfire. They had ridden from the unnamed town and tavern in the middle of the night in an attempt to throw off any eyes Zarkon might have set upon them. There had only been a few hours’ sleep for each of them. Well, some of them: Hunk had been too nervous to sleep, and without his comforting snores or Keith’s embrace, Lance had trouble catching Z’s as well. Pidge, on the other hand, had no trouble getting a good night's rest. The girl was unshakeable.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Are you going to shoot me or not?”

“Uh, question: why don’t you just shoot yourself, again?”

“Because, Hunk, if I do it Keith’ll see that the angle’s all wrong. It’s gotta be one of you. And just to, like, make sure—everyone knows what they’re supposed to do, right?” Lance looked at Pidge expectantly.

“For the millionth time, yes. Hunk and I will take care of the explosives.”

“And then we’ll meet up with you on the train for backup. We got this. I think.”

Lance took a breath, and looked over to where their horses stood, nibbling on some scrawny blades of grass. Blue had been through an awful lot these last few days. _Just make it through a little more and I’ll feed you all the oats you can eat, girl._

Keith had thrown it in Lance’s face, telling him he hadn’t found anything worth fighting for as if it were a bad thing. Fine. Lance pressed his lips into a thin line. _Look Keith. This is me fighting._

“Okay, are we gonna do this or what?” Lance said, not feeling quite ready for what was about to happen. He accepted the strip of leather Hunk gave him and put it between his teeth.

“Hey, I’m not the one stalling.” Pidge pursed her lips as if she hadn’t already decided where to shoot Lance and was just now mulling it over. “I’ve wanted to do this for years.”

“Then just do it alread—”

_BLAM!_

Lance fell to the dirt where they had padded with hay for this exact purpose. He screamed for a minute or two. Cried for another minute longer. Bit so hard into the leather he thought it would snap in half. Clutched the bullet wound in the meat behind his shinbone to try and distract himself from the worst pain of his life that he was now feeling for the second time in two days.

“Thanks,” he croaked some time later, and remained conscious just long enough to see Pidge grin and give him a thumbs-up.

 

**

 

_Yesterday._

Lance was barely able to keep himself horsed on Blue. Every hoofbeat sent a nice little jolt of pain through the knife wound below his belly-button. Not deep enough to puncture anything, but just enough to get the poison in. Really, even with his bruised throat and face, what hurt the most at the moment was his pride. He had been outsmarted, and now here he was, riding through the desert, naked under the blanket he normally used as a backup saddle, accessorized with the little gift Zarkon had given him.

 

_“Here,” Zarkon dropped a small but heavy object on Lance’s stomach. “In case you fail me. Never let it be said that Zarkon was not a merciful man. But if you somehow succeed, show this weapon to any Galra, and they will lead you to me. ”_

_Lance groaned, barely able to pick his head up through the fog of pain. “But do let it be said that Zarkon talks about Zarkon in the third person,” he quipped, though there was no power behind it. His belly dropped out when he saw Zarkon’s gift: a small pistol with a golden “Z” inlaid in the metal. Lance knew with terrible certainty that it was loaded with exactly one bullet. Charming._

 

First Keith, now Zarkon. How many other people were going to step all over him this week? At least Lance expected Zarkon to beat him up. Keith, though? Man, that one hurt. Part of Lance was proud that his boyfriend was so courageous and self sacrificing, but the other, bigger part was bruised. He couldn’t know for sure, but it was possible he had been betrayed even before Keith had lied to him and left with Allura; the Blades of Montana had gotten involved because of Keith, too. And now he was somewhere Lance wasn’t sure he could save him from.

And that wasn’t the only thing, either. Ever since all this business with the Galra had started going down, old memories had been clawing their way out of their graves. Though he had been trying to suffocate them, push them back under, they were starting to unnerve Lance. That dream he had right before waking up alone...he was supposed to have been over that.

But now? He couldn’t stop seeing his mother burning.

Flames danced before his eyes.

_Not now._

That’s what he kept telling himself. But if not now, then when? It had taken him years to choke off the visions and memories, almost forgetting them entirely, and he didn’t want all of that to come undone. When was ever a good time to fall apart?

Lance didn’t want to think about why he was dreaming these things. He wanted no part of the answers he already knew. That part of his life was supposed to have been over. Buried and gone. Just like his family.

 _But you didn’t bury them, did you? You didn’t do_ anything.

Blue whiskered beneath him, and Lance bent down to pat her on the neck. “I know, babe, I know. Men are asshats.” Lance dragged his eyes up, on the lookout for the little town he was supposed to meet Pidge and Hunk at. “And if I ever get my hands on the asshat I’m dating, I’m going to tear his mullet right off his dumb neck.”

 

**

 

_Last year._

Lance was going to tear the mullet right off this guy’s neck.

At least, that’s what he was afraid of. His hand was so twisted up and knotted in this guy’s hair—he didn’t even know his name—as they kissed that any extra movement might actually tear a few of his hairs out, which was ok, because he sure had a few to spare.

And there was a lot of extra movement. Because holy crap, this guy’s kissing was kind of violent. Lance broke away from air just as he was spun around and had his back practically slammed up against the wall (technically an alleyway. Next to The Advisor, because yeah, they couldn’t even wait that long). The mystery rich kid knife-fighter guy slid his hand further up Lance’s shirt and kissed him, hard.

“What—” Lance gasped, trying to keep up. Which really said something, because he was _very_ experienced in the art of making out. Maybe not a whole lot beyond that, but hey, kissing was one of life’s few pleasures, and sex was messy and inconvenient, to say the least. “What’s your name?”

“Keith,” Keith said, breath hot on Lance’s mouth. “You?”

“Lance.”

“Cool.”

And then they were back to making out, Keith’s hands fumbling under Lance’s shirt, Lance’s hands all over this guy’s frankly heavenly hair and cupping his jaw. Part of Lance worried about doing this out in public, but a) this was Chicago at night and b) neither of them apparently had any place to go. Plus, Lance wasn’t really sure what was even happening. Things had moved so fast in the backroom of The Advisor earlier, he was feeling sort of whiplashed. The guy—Keith—had won the shit out of that knife fight before Lance could even place his bet. Then they had made eye contact more loaded with sexual tension than Pidge had probably felt in all eighteen years of her life. One thing lead to another, and Lance may or may not have challenged the hot stranger to a knife fight. Just to prove himself. Also because something in him wanted to beat the dude. And do...other...things to the dude. Whatever.

“You don’t wanna do this,” the stranger had said, eyes sweeping up and down Lance’s lanky frame. “You saw what happened to the last guy.”

“Yeah, but the last guy wasn’t me. Let’s go, Mullet. You and me. Or are you afraid you’ll get hurt?” Lance flicked out his pocket knife he always carried, letting his most charming grin spread across his face. Ok, so he was trying to flirt via knife fight. Sue him.

“You? Hurt me?” The stranger chuckled, low and confident and condescending.  

Ten minutes later and Lance was on his butt, bleeding in several different places. His head had been a little foggy as the stranger offered a hand, saying something about going to patch him up.

 _That_ had been unbearable. In the little closet Coran kept for taking care of his bet-losing fighters, Lance had stripped out of his shirt and watched as the guy’s face deepened several shades of deep red. Right there was the moment Lance knew something was going to happen.

“You know,” Keith said, turning away to hide his face, setting out supplies on the small table in the room. It was barely large enough to contain the two of them, the cot, and the cabinets. The lack of space pressed them close together. “You shouldn’t be getting into knife fights. You’re pretty terrible.”

Keith uncorked a bottle of liquor and held it out to Lance expectantly. Lance flashed a grin, took a quick swig, and passed it back to Keith. The fire in his throat helped distract from the sting of the alcohol cleaning out his wounds.

As Keith worked on wrapping up Lance’s many cuts, Lance took the opportunity to study him further. He liked everything he saw; the sharp cheekbones, the slim body, the hard but kind looking eyes. The nervousness beneath the cool-boy exterior. It was also impossible to get a read on this guy: what was a rich boy doing down here in a bar cellar? He obviously didn’t need the winnings.

“I’m not usually so bad. I was just distracted.”

Lance took savage pleasure in watching the tips of Keith’s ears redden further, if that was even possible. Yeah, this “cool guy” wasn’t fooling anybody.

“Distracted?”

Keith dabbed some liquor-soaked cotton on a cut across Lance’s cheek. It didn’t escape Lance’s notice that Keith was staring hard at the cut, not at Lance.

“Yeah. You can’t be that cute and not expect to be distracting.”

It was a bold move, even for Lance. Okay, yes, he had done this before. But not that many times. Lance had been pretty successful in making Pidge and Hunk think he was a sex god, but really? There had only ever been one other guy. Well, one and a half, if you counted that one time with Hunk that they had mutually agreed to never speak about again on pain of death. Point being, it wasn’t exactly safe to waltz around kissing other men.

But when had safety ever held Lance back?

The complement turned Keith’s head, and he stared at Lance with that same smoldering gaze.

Finally: “Dogs are cute. I’m not.”

“Fine, tough guy. You’re handsome. Hot. Whatever. Is that a little less emasculating for you?”

Lance winced as Keith pressed the cotton into one of his cuts a little too hard.

“You’re being an ass.”

“I was trying to give you a compliment.”

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty bad at it.”

“Then I guess I’ll just do something I’m good at.” Without waiting, Lance leaned forward, slid his hand around the back of Keith’s neck, and kissed him.

 

**

 

_Today._

A few hours after being shot by Pidge, Lance looked down at the golden pocket watch he held in his bloody palm.

 

_Keith kissed his fingers where they clutched the watch. “It’s time for you to go.”_

 

The second hand flicked its way through the numbers. And though he didn’t consider himself a pessimist by nature, today Lance keenly felt each of those seconds slipping through his fingers.

The sun was hot on the back of his neck. A few miles from the hilltop he and Blue were perched on, the town of Altea nested in the dirt.

The poison in his veins ached.

“C’mon Blue,” Lance said. He nudged her sides, starting her toward the town and whatever fate it held for him. “Time for us to go.”

Ten minutes later, Lance was riding Blue through the center street, if it could be called that. Altea was just like any other pioneer town in the west, albeit a little cleaner and less ramshackle than most. Lance wasn’t too invested in the scenery though, because he was trying to focus on appearing vulnerable and injured, which wasn’t hard; he had lost a lot of blood since getting shot by Pidge. The tricky part was he couldn’t bandage it either. It had to look legit.

“Keith,” he croaked to a man walking by, just as he had since entering the town. “Get me Keith. Tell him Lance is here.” The man shot him a strange look and hurried on. It didn’t matter. Sooner or later, the word would get out about a dark-skinned young man riding wounded through town.

Which would be nice, because Lance was starting to feel pretty awful. It was getting harder and harder to stay balanced on Blue, and he could feel the blood soaking his leg, sloshing around in his boot. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the dark creeping in at the edges of his vision.

“Keith…”

He sneezed, but the effort cost him his seat on the saddle. One moment he was sitting up, the next the world was tilting and Lance was on the ground with an _oomph._

A warm, velvety object pressed up against his cheek. Huffed warm air over his face.

He smiled up at the horse. “I’m okay Blue. Just a little dizzy, that’s all.”

Thoughts mixed and swirled in his head. _I’m not doing the right thing,_ he assured himself. _I’m just surviving._

 

_Are you worth fighting for?_

 

_“We all have to die sometime, Lance.” Mama took his hand as they walked along the ridge where wildflowers pushed through the unrelenting stone. “I know it doesn’t seem fair, but life, all of this…” she swept her hands around the field. “It isn’t measured in how long you’re here to see it. Someday you’ll understand.”_

_Mama smiled and blew a puff of air into his eyes, making Lance squeal and laugh._

_“But you don’t have to worry about those things now. My baby boy, you are young! And you have so many happy days ahead.”_

 

_The blue crystals, singing to him. Soothing him in the bloody dark._

 

Someone was running towards him.

“Hey Mullet,” Lance croaked.

Keith skidded to the ground on his knees. He was shouting something over his shoulder, glancing back down at Lance, worry filling his eyes. This wasn’t how he expected it to go, huh? Lance laughed through the haze. Well, maybe Keith should have thought of this when he lied to Lance’s face.

As Lance keeled over, Keith caught his torso and held him in his lap. _You’re so selfish. I hate you. I love you. Why can’t you see that?_ It was a good thing almost dying was a part of Lance’s plan, because otherwise he would have been getting pretty scared right now. Take that, universe.

“Lance? Lance, stay with me. You’ve lost a lot of blood, ok? Where did you even—Allura! _Allura!_ ” Keith turned back to him. “Lance, please, please stay awake.”

_You promised me, asshole._

Slowly, bone-achingly slowly, Lance wound the chain of the golden watch around his knuckles. He had thought seeing Keith again would be relieving, but instead, it was just kind of pissing him off all over again. Lance was done listening to Keith. So, using the last of his strength, Lance hauled off and punched him in the teeth.


	4. Tick, Tock (part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! Apologies for the unintentional hiatus--lots of life stuff got in the way very quickly. But I'll do my best to keep updating regularly! In case you were wondering, Bloodride! has been written and finished, so don't worry about me just disappearing on this fic. I'm just editing a little as I go before posting chapters. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

_Zarkon. 12:34 am._

The most powerful man in the West was growing restless. Though his office at the trainyards was filigreed with gold leaf and populated with plush satin pillows, Zarkon still longed to be back in Chicago or Houston or New York. He had no desire to place himself in these God-forsaken hells of dust and sun; no, he had risen far above those days of squalor. And while it was true that Zarkon had chosen to personally oversee his project here, his patience with the Alteans was beginning to wear thin.

There was something about that boy. Lance. Zarkon’s mouth curled into a frown. He knew the type: witty, overgrown in confidence and charm. In fact, he had spent much of his youth in the presence of an archetype such as Lance, so much so that he knew every cog of the boy’s dim mind and how each fit together. No doubt there would be some halfwit scheme to double cross him, no doubt the outlaw would try to wriggle like a fish out of Zarkon’s grasp because wriggling and sleazing and schmoozing his way out of every situation and responsibility had worked thus far in his pathetic life. No, the more thought Zarkon gave to the matter, the more sure he became that he had not applied the proper amount of pressure. A physical wound might motivate people such as Lance, but would it be enough? Possibly not. Zarkon could practically taste the counterplots bubbling in Lance’s treacherous little brain. This situation required...a reminder. Not anything too drastic, no direct intervention, just a simple course correction. A memo from Zarkon, written in blood, come to collect his debts. It was even probable he could make the blood message fit into his project and kill two birds with one stone.

Dogs such as Lance were always loyal to something or someone. For the dog Zarkon held in his clutches, it had been Alfor.

The pieces were beginning to reveal themselves to him. Out in the desert, Zarkon had learned the The Ghost of the West’s loyalty lay with the younger Shirogane. And now that his guards were beginning to recover, new information from survivors of the caravan attack had shed light on something else. Before being knocked out, one guard remembered a tall girl with dark skin and white hair: Alfor’s daughter had entered the game. Yes, Zarkon remembered her. He remembered the look of horror on her face when Alfor’s body had fallen like the bell toll of death. It seemed logical the girl would be set on a path of salvation for her town, possibly even nursing a quaint little vendetta.

Zarkon’s frown twisted into a smile. The velvet drapes fluttered in the hot breeze from the trainyard. Moonlight glinted over his wealth. Oh, how good Lady Fate was to him. How useful his hostage was turning out to be.

“Bring the spy in,” Zarkon called to the guards waiting on the other side of his oaken office doors. Despite the early morning hour and despite the vagueness of his orders, the men knew their duty. Within moments the grand doors were swinging open to reveal a man being dragged by the two guards. A white hood covered his head, though a shock of orange hair spilled out from beneath its cloth. Zarkon stood, knees cracking.

“Remove the hood.”

The hostage spy raised his eyes to meet Zarkon’s. Haggar had done her work well: Coran’s face was covered with bruises and cuts, his body limp with pain and exhaustion and hopelessness. A trickle of blood ran down from his hairline like a choked river dried up in the desert sun.

“I didn’t talk to your zombie witch,” Coran spat. A twitch of painful memory came at the mention of Haggar: _Honerva, smiling in the light, reaching out for him._ Zarkon let it come. Relished the pain of it.  Some part of Zarkon had to admire Coran’s tenacity. The other just considered it vanity. “What makes you think I’ll talk to you? I’d sooner die.”

Zarkon’s shadow covered Coran’s face. “Please, do not be melodramatic.” His knife hissed as it came free of its sheath. With two clean cuts, Coran’s shirt lay in tatters on the carpet. Kneeling, Zarkon traced the knife along the lines of Coran’s jaw. “I’m not here to kill you.”

“If it’s torture, then go ahead.”

“Not torture either, although my purpose does involve pain.” Yes, Zarkon was coming to like this plan more and more. The poetry of it. The pattern. He moved so that he was facing Coran’s broad and bruised chest. A faint memory rippled beneath the waves of thought: Zarkon, Alfor, Coran, swimming in a lake together while Honerva looked on, Zarkon poking fun at how Coran’s pale skin reflected the sun.

He let the memory take its course. Zarkon had risen above such trivial things as being frightened of the past; he had accepted his actions in life. There was power in acknowledging one’s ghosts—it was easier to strangle them that way. The reality was that the truth stung: he and Coran and Alfor had been friends once. And when the time had come to move up in the world, Alfor and his lackey had chosen to stay with the rabble and play in the mud. They had gotten in Zarkon’s way. Only Honerva, cunning and beautiful Honerva, had seen the truth of his plans. Betrayal from the others was inevitable. And it was their betrayal that had pushed him to do the things he had. Perhaps pulling Alfor’s entrails from his chest in front of his daughter had been a tad showy, but such was the fire of youth.

He set to his task without joy. Coran would be a useful tool, but he had also been the companion of the man Zarkon had once loved, and he would not begrudge Coran that.

Coran held in his screams for an admirable amount of time as the knife dug into his chest, but eventually, inevitably, they came, and Zarkon held his gaze the whole time. He felt the full tide of remorse and pain over the anguish he was causing this ephemeral friend, holding Coran’s eyes as he did so, letting him know that this was not easy for either of them. Zarkon did not find solace in coming to terms with his ghosts. No, like Honerva rising from her broken body, he too had found something useful in confronting one’s past:

Power.

When the task was done, his knife dripping with blood, Zarkon stood and drew the white cloth from his suit’s breast pocket. One wipe of the knife on either side of the blade. Quick. Efficient.

“Thank you,” he told Coran, voice earnest and empty. “Now, listen carefully.”

The grandfather clock in the corner kept pace with the dripping of Coran’s blood: _tick, tock._

**

_Pidge._ _1:02 am._

Sweat trickled down her brow as she finished twisting in the last of screws.

Laying on her back, Pidge took a moment to admire her work. Hunk had managed, just from taking visual measurements of the car, to calculate the exact spot where she could cut a hole in the bottom of the train car and come up underneath a seat. Sawing silently through the floorboards hadn’t been easy, but Pidge had done it, and had wired the bomb into the seat as well, perfectly hidden, sticking like a wad of chewed gum. Part of her felt a twinge of remorse for wiring a bomb to the underside of a wonder of engineering like this steam-powered locomotive. But she also didn’t really have time to listen to that part at the moment. There were places to be, Galra to shoot.

Carefully, carefully, she started scooting her way back towards freedom. The train was resting for the moment, but sat in the middle of a massive Galra supply depot; if she didn’t want to get caught, she had to be careful. A thousand tons of iron sat above her head, and it was the underside of this mechanical beauty that Pidge had been crawling all over since the sun set.

She grinned at her handiwork as she crawled. Their car was the last before the furnace, so even if the train wasn’t derailed it would still be inoperable, unable to reach its destination. Yet it was still a passenger car: if the situation changed and Lance needed to defuse the bomb, he could still get to it. Pure genius. Also, the stupid wooden rail ties had given her a lot of splinters today, and it was going to delight to see them all blown to shit.

Though the timer made no sound, Pidge could practically hear it in her head:

_Tick, tock._

_**_

_Hunk._ _1:05 am._

 _Where is she? What time is it?_ Hunk squinted up at the moon. Measured it with the width of his hand. They still had time before the next sentry round came, yeah? Hopefully.

Yellow nudged his side, and Hunk patted his side absentmindedly. From his vantage point above the Galra Company depot, he could see the forms of the iron giants where they slept, the belly of one which Pidge was hopefully squirming under at the moment. Gosh, he hoped nothing went wrong. This waiting was killing him. What was Pidge doing down there that was taking so long? He should have gone with her, he knew it. Playing guard was stupid. Over and over again, Hunk’s mind went over the plan and all the ways in which it could go wrong. Oh man, he hoped it didn’t go wrong.

“Seriously,” he told his horse, even though she was tied up several hundred feet back, out of the sight lines of the depot guards, “this is the last time I get left behind. I swear I’m getting grey hairs. Do you think Pidge is alright? And what about Lance? What if he never made it to Altea? Or what if he can’t get Allura to let him go?”

But he could worry all he wanted; nothing was going to change. Still. It made him feel a bit better.

Hunk closed his eyes and tried to imagine a world where he was just sitting on a beach, nobody shooting at him, no Lance turning up half dead. Was retirement a thing at his age and semi-criminal occupation?

Sighing, he settled down in his nest of blankets, listening for the inevitable gunshots that would mean Pidge’s job was finished and she was ready to get the heck out of there. He held up his palm to the sky to try and measure the time.

_Tick, tock._

_**_

_Shiro. 1:10 am._

He waited with silent breath as the sentry disappeared around the corner of the depot warehouse. Were his weapons loaded? Check. Position secure? Also check.

The scar across the bridge of his nose burned.

A phantom sensation curled like woodsmoke in the air where his arm used to be.

Shiro drew a golden pocket watch, a twin of the one he had given Keith for his eighteenth birthday. He flicked it open.

_Tick, tock._

_Three, two, one, go._

A shadow peeled itself from the timetables booth and flowed across the warehouse walls where a moment before the sentry had walked. Shiro kept his steps light. The most important thing was to stay focused. The facility was crawling with Galran guards, punctuated with staccato beams of light that swept back and forth like the waves of an ocean. Shiro, however, was more than up to the task. It also helped that his objective wasn’t too difficult: slip inside a car on the train headed to Altea that morning. Then, join up with Keith where they would have two days to form a solid plan for Altea’s insurgency: a squadron of Blades was behind Shiro and would be expecting orders when they arrived.

If he had been worried about identifying the right train in the dark, he needn’t have been. The moon was out in full splendor tonight, washing the chilly desert in hues of silver and blue. Shiro tried to calm himself; all the pieces were now in motion, everything going smoothly, or so he had to assume. He hadn’t received any bad news from Keith. Or any news, come to think of it.

If everything was going so well, than what was this dreading feeling in his gut? It was peculiar and unsettling. Shiro had the strangest sensation of arriving to play a hand cards only to find that the game was already nearing its completion.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts was he that, rounding a corner of the wall he was hugging, Shiro nearly bumped into the sentry.

His already fraying nerves sizzled with electricity, and almost involuntarily he swung his arm to punch out his attacker (who was, his mind noted, curiously short), but his opponent was quicker and rolled beneath his swing. A sharp pain ignited in his shin. Shiro cursed and lashed out with his own foot and hit home. The small guard was driven into the side of the building with an _oomph_ , all the air leaving her lungs.

Quickly, Shiro drew his knife and was a heartbeat away from driving it through his attacker’s throat before she shouted.

“Hey hey hey! Stop! I’m not Galra!”

It was only his training that saved her. Shiro grunted and managed to divert the power of his thrust so that his knife bit into the wood planks by the girl’s ear.

He blinked. Was it true? Through the moonlight, Shiro saw not the Galra uniform, but rather a smallish girl, about sixteen or seventeen, with short cropped hair wearing men’s riding breeches and a native-made poncho dyed black—stolen, from the looks of it—that was much too large for her. Eyes wide with fear shown their whites like patches of snow in the dark.

“Who are you?” He hissed. “What are you doing here?”

“None of your business, that’s who!”

“You almost got me caught, that makes you my business!”

She spoke in harsh whispers, though out of anger or fear, Shiro couldn’t tell.

“ _I_ almost got _you_ caught? Excuse me, but I wasn’t the one who wasn’t watching where they were going. Who even _are_ you, anyway?”

“None of your business, that’s who,” Shiro said dryly. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but this place isn’t safe, especially not for little girls. You need to leave. Now.”

“Uh, since when did I give you permission to tell me what to do?”

Shiro could feel his teeth grinding down to nothing. Every second he spent here arguing with this child was another second they could both get caught. He needed to go. But could he just leave her here? Nothing about this made sense.

He could take her with him to Altea. At least there she could get help contacting her parents, if she had any parents. Maybe—

“Hunk, wait—”

Shiro looked up just in time to see the girl’s eyes widening before something that felt like a wooden plank cracked across the back of his head. Without protest, his feet dropped out from under him and the ground rushed up to meet his face. Pain flooded his body. Shiro groaned. He was vaguely aware of voices conversing somewhere above him, but heard them dimly, as if though through a very thick pane of glass.  

“Did I get him?”

“Holy shit, yeah! Did you see how fast he dropped? He’s like a sack of potatoes!”

“Uh, yeah, great, but are you okay? I saw him attack you and—”

“I’m fine, Hunk. I think he thought I was Galra; he stopped when he saw I wasn’t.”

“Well, who is he?”

“No clue. Whaddya think’s up with the weird hairdo?”

“Not the time, Pidge. Are you _sure_ you finished rigging the Altea train?”

“Just as sure as the last three times you asked.”

That caught Shiro’s attention. He latched onto the words like like a tired swimmer and let them pull him to the surface of consciousness.

“Did you say ‘Altea’?” He managed, struggling to sit upright.

“Great, Hunk, now you told him our plan.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Guess we have no choice but to kill him,” the girl who must be Pidge said, though she said it the way one might declare they had no choice but to cross the street to get to get a pastry. If Shiro wasn’t alert before, this brought him all the way back.

He struggled to his feet, one hand on the back of his head. “Whoa whoa whoa, just hold on a second, okay? Nobody’s going to kill anybody. Yet.” Blinking rapidly seemed to help clear some of the rainbow lights from his vision. “Did you say a train to Altea? The town?”

“No,” Pidge deadpanned, slowly sliding her tiny pistol back in its holster. “Altea, the State Fair— _of course_ the town.”

“Well, as it happens, I’m looking for a ride there. But I can’t have you two messing around and getting me caught. And I’m guessing you can’t be persuaded to stop whatever is you’re doing?”

“Nope.”

“Then let me help.”

The big man, Hunk, took the smallest step to position himself between Shiro and Pidge. He too was dressed in an absurd array of mismatched black clothing, this time accentuated with mud smeared across his cheeks. “Wait, hold up a second there, buddy. What makes you think we can trust you?”

“Because you’re still alive.” Shiro didn’t normally like scaring people, but he was sensing there wasn’t a whole lot of ways to get through to these ones.

Hunk and Pidge eyed him for a moment.

“Hunk,” Pidge said, “emergency family meeting.” She flicked her chin at Shiro. “We’ll be right with you.”

She grabbed Hunk’s arm and spun him around so they could talk in semi-privacy. Shiro sighed, letting the warehouse wall take some of his weight. They were far too exposed out here. Sooner or later a sentry would come around again—he needed to get on that train. But now, of course, there was also the matter of these kids. He might have written them off as simple coincidence, him running into a pack of thieving outlaws, had it not been for their common ground of Altea. For some reason, these thugs wanted to rig what looked like a sack full of explosives on a train headed to the town he wanted to save. No, Shiro didn’t believe in coincidences that big. He couldn’t afford to.

As Pidge and Hunk conversed in a furious exchange of whispers, Shiro let his eyes roam the premises. The searchlights were, for now, trained elsewhere, and the yard seemed mostly quiet. High in the main complex, Zarkon’s office window had finally fallen dark. Still, his skin crawled. He was deviating from his plan, and deviations almost never ended well.

His ears pricked.

“Hold on, did you just say _Lance?_ ”

The kids whipped around to look at him. Pidge’s hand drifted back to her pistol. “What’s it to you?”

“Lance? Lance McClain?”

“How do you know him?”

Hunk toyed with his own fingers nervously. “Anyone could recognize that name, Pidge, he’s a famous outlaw. You know, as in, Lance McClain, the Ghost of the West?”

“No,” Shiro said. “I’m talking about Lance McClain, my brother Keith’s boyfriend.”

He watched the name sink in. How did these two know Lance? And what were they doing getting entangled in Altean-Galran business?

 _Keith_ , Shiro thought, _please tell me_ you _didn’t go to your idiot boyfriend for help._ Ok, that was a little harsh: Lance was far from an idiot. In fact, he was something of a criminal mastermind, known for raiding lonely caravans and train shipments and then disappearing without a trace. No, the real problem was that Shiro didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him. Nothing good would come of him getting mixed up in Blade affairs. _Figures,_ Shiro had thought tiredly when Keith had first told him the identity of his mysterious lover. Of course Keith would go out and date the most notorious criminal of the decade. Even if he would never admit it, his little brother always did have a flair for the dramatic.

“ _Hey!_ You there!”

The sentry who had rounded the corner of an adjacent warehouse was pointing at them and drawing his pistol at the same time. “Intruders will be shot on sight!”

Shiro’s heartbeat boomed in his ears, thud thud thudding like the swell of a great river, blocking out any fear he might have felt. With one swift motion he drew his own weapon from his hip and shot; the sentry fell a half moment later. Dead.

He looked at Pidge and Hunk, own weapons already poised and ready.

“We can talk about family relations later; I have a train to catch. Whatever is you’re going to do, I suggest you do it now.”

Hunk, looking the slightest bit sick, nodded solemnly, while Pidge’s feral grin glinted in the moonlight. Without another word they took off across the trainyard. Locomotive 12—the train scheduled to depart for Altea in the morning—was stationed on the other side of the yard, away from the cluster of warehouses and offices. Making it there in one piece would require sprinting through or under four other parked lines of train cars and more time than Shiro liked.

One of the searchlights swung around like an accusing finger from the heavens, branding them for all to see as targets. Quick and heavy as an approaching sheet of rain, bullets began to fall down around their ears. Chunks of concrete and gravel flew and sparks were thrown up where they hit the metal of cars or railways. The whole world was plunged into a bullet-riddled pit of chaos in the space of three seconds flat.

Shiro roared and dove for the cover of the underbelly of the first line of cars. Not a hair behind him slid Pidge and Hunk, all of them sucking in furious gulps of air.

“Please,” Shiro grunted, “tell me you two have some sort of diversion.”

“What, you don’t have one yourself?”

“I wasn’t planning on being _seen_.”

Hunk wriggled a canvas bag off his back. “Um, let’s see here. I have three sticks of dynamite left over we could use.”

“Left over from what? What were you two _doing_ out here?”

Pidge’s spectacles caught a shaft of moonlight, turning them, for a brief, moment, opaque with a demonic gleam. “Demolition preparations. What do you think, Hunk? One stick or two?”

A bullet slammed into the dirt not an inch from Hunk’s boot.

“Two,” he said, digging around in his pockets. “Definitely two.”

The chill of night in the desert had evaporated, burned away by the scorching intensity of a fight. Gravel dug into Shiro’s back, but he was more focused on the small light that flared to life in Hunk’s cupped hands, a whiff of carbon, and then the sizzle of a fuse being lit. The bass drum kept time in his temples, in his ears, all through his chest. The tiny vibrations of his pocket watch's second hand tapped against his thigh.

Moving with surprising grace, Hunk lobbed the sticks up into the air, where they sank like descending angels of destruction into the coal car of the train adjacent to their own.

“Uh, guys? You should probably cover your ears.”

No sooner had Shiro followed Hunk’s instructions than the world was rent apart with an ear splitting _BOOM._ The explosive had earned its name in a spectacular fashion, blowing apart the coal car with the concussive force of a bursting dam. Burning hunks of coal fell from the sky, strangely beautiful and very deadly meteorites.

“Go! Now!”

Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge squeezed out from under their own train car and took off running across the yard. The sentries seemed to be too preoccupied with the burning, twisted wreck at the moment to give any real chase, but there was no telling how long they had before they were seen—or, better yet—shot at. _We aren’t going to make it,_ Shiro realized. _There isn’t enough time. It’s too far._

No sooner had the thought entered his mind than a leviathan groan shook the air. For a second Shiro thought it was some ancient beast screaming in agony. A quick glance back over his shoulder confirmed it wasn’t, though the sight still almost stopped his running in surprise: the train Hunk had torn into was now almost completely ablaze, the fire having hopped from car to car like a jubilant and ravenous creature devouring its prey with abandon. And not only that, but the force had blown the cars off their wheels. The locomotive itself was now tipping towards them, bringing the rest of its fifteen or so cars tipping with it.

Shiro pumped his legs harder, trying to outrun the crashing wave of burning coal. Heat blasted the back of his neck. Sweat raced down his back. _Don’t look back again. It will only waste time._ With one last surge of energy he dove for the safety of the next train. Gravel tore open the skin on his chest and legs through his clothes, but at least the heat melted away, and he was relieved to find Hunk and Pidge safe beside him.

But the relief was only temporary.

“Uh, guys?” Hunk crawled up next to Shiro. “I think we’d better keep moving.”

He was right. Another crash shook the earth, only this time it was the ruined train slamming into the one they were now hiding under. The force was enough to lift the wheels of one side of their train off the ground too.

Shiro set his jaw. “This train’s going to tip.”

“Run?”  
“Run,” he agreed, and they were off again, plunging back into that cool blue night invaded by the harsh orange glare of fire feasting on the dry painted wood of the train cars. Galra security was now swarming across the yard. The good was this: they were not focused on Shiro or the other two; every sentry was running or riding to the burning fiasco currently unfolding. Their boots slapped against the ground with brutal uniformity and their horses were large and stocky, small moving mountains silhouetted in the night and the flames. Not for the first time, Shiro wondered if the Blades had the discipline or resources to truly combat the Galra.

The train shuddered and began to succumb to gravity in earnest. Shiro bit his tongue. Now was _not_ the time to get lost in his head.

“We’ll never be able to get out of here,” Pidge gasped. “We’re gonna be trapped.”

She wasn’t wrong: there was no way anybody would be slipping out of this yard once the commotion had died down. It was as if Hunk had gone and punted a hornet’s nest: the Galra guards were ready for war, all having been drawn out of their hive by danger and ready to defend it with their lives.

“Maybe you won’t have to get out,” he said as they came to kneel behind yet another car, chests rising up and and down, greedy for air.

“What do you mean?”

“If you two try to get out of here now, you’re going to be captured, or worse, killed. But if you stow away with me on the train to Altea, you might just have a chance.” _Provided it doesn’t burn to the ground first._

He could see the silent conversation that passed between the two, could feel every second as it slipped through his fingers. The Altean train was so close now. All they had to do was slip in, hide, and wait. _I’m coming, Keith._

Finally, Pidge nodded, and Hunk looked at Shiro. “We’re with you. I think.”

“Close enough,” Shiro said. Some part of him was worried about dragging two civilians along into whatever danger he was bound to be headed for, and the other part was worried about how they had gotten mixed up in the Ghost of the West. Now Shiro was forced to re-evaluate the man; previously he hadn’t thought Lance as much of a threat to anyone, least of all the Galra. But if he had people running around planting bombs in Galra trainyards, then perhaps the Ghost was up to much more than he was letting on. Whatever it was, he wasn’t about to let these two out of his sight until he got some answers. _Why do I feel_ , Shiro thought, very pointedly and not for the first time, _as if I’m entering a game that’s already decided?_

“Nobody’s over there,” Hunk said. “We should get going, right?”

“Right.”

And that was all it took. As men and women scrambled to put out the burning coal fires feasting on the iron bones of the steamers, three shadows flowed across the yard, through the liquid blue shadows cast by the desert moon. One moment, two, and they were slipping inside the car of a train destined for Altea the next afternoon.

Settling into his hiding place, Shiro checked his pocket watch.

_Tick, tock._

_**_

 

Keith. 9:13 am.

_“And you’d sacrifice everyone you love to just save some people you don’t even know!” Dream-Lance took a shuddering breath. “You don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you love die.”_

_The words hung in the air between them._

_“Don’t throw this away. Please say you’ll stay. Please.” Lance dragged the back of his hand across his face, and the tears came free and floated through the air like little blue crystals. It was right there that Keith knew he was going to lie, and that it might break Lance, and break both of them._

_But he didn’t have a choice. Lance just wasn’t understanding; Keith_ had _to do this._

_From behind him rose the huge shadow of Zarkon. Suddenly Lance was gone, replaced with sweeping fields of wilderness, pristine and empty before being ripped apart by the claws of God. Except this God was a god of greed, and blood, and fire. So it all burned. Keith could only watch helplessly as thousands of innocents were swallowed by the flames that he himself fanned._

_“I’m sorry!” He screamed. “I tried to help!”_

_But in his heart of hearts, Keith knew he had never tried hard enough. Had he really devoted every part of himself to bringing down the Galra? Some insidious part of him thought back to those golden lazy afternoons spent kissing Lance. How many families in Texas had had their land taken away at that very moment? How many were dying or trying to scrape out a living? Every kiss from the boy he loved only grew a bloom of pain._

_“Don’t you care about me?” Lance peered up at him with hollow eyes. And Keith wanted to tell him yes, of course, but it was bigger than Lance. He loved Lance, but he had a duty. He had to think beyond just the few that he loved._

_He was thrown back to the dark room squeezed between walls, the space in Zarkon’s offices that technically wasn’t supposed to exist._

_“You’re sure about this?” Though he couldn’t see Shiro in the gloom, Keith could hear the concern in his voice._

_“Yes. This Altean advisor—Coran—he was desperate to find the Blades. He insisted that his town was Zarkon’s next target.”_

_“And you believe him?”_

_Sweaty fights balanced on the edges of knives; flecks of blood and spittle. Coran’s deal to help train Keith to fight since Shiro refused, all in exchange for Keith’s help in contacting the Blades. Sitting with Coran after said fights, the older man helping stitch up Keith in the backrooms of the speakeasy he ran. Chattering away about Altea, about the young woman who was his charge and center of his universe. His showing Keith a sketch of the girl’s father Keith half-recognized from a photograph in Zarkon’s office. Keith could tell from the gentle curves of the lines that Coran had drawn that visage, and that he had loved man it belonged to. Not the way Shiro and Keith loved each other, but in a way even more profound. He found familiarity in the adoration of another man’s cheekbones and the aurora behind his eyes._

_“Yes. Absolutely.”_

_Breathlessly, Shiro slipped Keith a small piece of paper._

_“Then the Blades will help you get to the border of Texas. I can arrange for you to ride anonymously within a Galra supply shipment; it’s headed to a depo meant for construction on the Altean site there, but it’s still a long ways from there to the town itself. Putting together a plan will be up to you until I can meet you out there. I’ll find a way.”_

_Keith nodded before remembering Shiro couldn’t see him, so he clapped his brother on the shoulder. Was this the last time they would ever touch?_

_Watching the dream-memory, Keith felt an awful weight settle in his stomach. He had known the plan was insane; hell, there hadn’t even_ been _a plan. He had been mulling over ways to slip away from the Galra caravan when Lance had proposed his own scheme of ransom._

_At first Keith had been hesitant; after all, there was a high likelihood of him never coming back from his mission, which meant he shouldn’t be making plans with Lance for a happy-ever-after. But then he had seen a way to use Lance to his advantage. Lance was just the thing he needed; a means away from the Galra. Even if it meant—_

_What? Stabbing Lance in the back? Because some part of Keith had always felt that there would be no convincing Lance to help Altea. He knew his boyfriend too well for that argument to work. No. He was going to double-cross Lance, use him as the perfect cover to get away from the Galra who had unwittingly taken him to Texas—he could hardly be blamed for his escape if it was against his will—and then dump Lance as soon as they neared Altea._

_The next part would be tricky. Keith himself wasn’t the greatest bargaining chip in the world; he was a low-ranking Galra employee, nothing worth signing away Zarkon’s chances at Altea for. But he was the brother of Zarkon’s Strategies Division Manager, and if Allura could convince Zarkon that she could get Keith to spill Shiro’s Galra secrets, he just might be worth something. Sending Shiro, of course, would have been more straightforward, but far too dangerous. As one of the leaders of the Blades, Shiro’s direct involvement in a mission like this just couldn’t be risked. Kolivan would never have it. All Shiro had to do was put in a request to send Keith along as a supervisor on the Altea surveying caravan, and their plan was set in motion._

_And then, when Keith had used himself a bargaining chip in return for Altea’s safety, he would pin his life on his boyfriend overcoming the wounds Keith had given him, coming to save Keith from Zarkon again._

_Allura showing up at the gorge had been an unforeseen wildcard, but also sort of a happy accident. She actually happened to be just the person he was looking for. If anything, her kidnapping him would work even better in their favor; Zarkon would know exactly where to look for his stolen employee. But Keith had still left Lance, still struck out for Altea. He was still using Lance. Plain and simple. Like hopping across stones in a river, never looking back._

_It broke Keith’s heart to think about it like that, but there was no use fooling himself._

_He watched Lance’s crystal tears shimmering as they floated away to join their cousins in the nighttime sky. And even within the dream, some part of him was certain that these would not be the last tears shed before this was over._

_**_

_Allura. 9:45 am._

She leaned heavily on the table where the small memorial to her father stood; a yellowed photograph of his smile, a few of his favorite dried flowers, a lone flickering candle. Her rifle, cleaned and loaded, underscored the assembly.

“Help me, father. I don’t know—I don’t know what path to take.”

A tight breath escaped her lungs. It had been a given that the trade with Zarkon was going to be dangerous, but the arrival of Lance had only served to further complicate matters. Allura had anticipated that Lance might give chase when she and Keith had ridden off in the middle of the night. She had been ready for a fight.

But she hadn’t been ready to save his life.

After Lance had given Keith a black eye and then promptly passed out, they had worked without rest, cleaning and stitching the multitude of wounds across his body, most notably the bullet hole in his leg. Though it went against her better judgement, Allura could not just stand by and watch an innocent soul die.

Well, from the little Keith had said to her, “innocent” might be a stretch. But the principle was the same.

It was her turn to keep watch over the man; Keith was taking a rare nap in the other room. She glanced at Lance. He was still out cold on her bed.

Her father smiled at her from the picture. What would he do?

She felt the familiar prickling in her eyes, and the rage building in her chest. She felt the kindness of her father's smile and the warmth of his embrace. The pain of those memories was still raw; it had only been a few seasons, though it seemed like decades spent shouldering the burden of the town all on her own. Even her guardian was nowhere to be found. Coran was hiding out somewhere to the east, trying to gather information about a rumored rebellion within the Galra empire itself. No, now it was only Allura who could save her town and the thousands of souls within it. She would not fail them. She _could not_ fail them.

“I’m trying.”

Allura knew what had to be done. The game she was playing was too dangerous to allow herself any weakness. The resolve within her gut hardened; she could not let Keith be distracted. He was the only card she had not played, her last chance.

The worn wood and metal of her rifle, normally calming in her grip, seemed heavy and sinister now. A tear slipped out of her eye and down her cheek. Now was not the time to imagine Alfor’s shame. Now was the time to do what had to be done. She would deal with her expiation when Altea was safe and the corpse of Zarkon and his precious Company lay buried at her feet.

She turned toward the sleeping man with the rifle in hand, and nearly jumped out of her skin. From the bedside table, a watch _tick-tocked—_

 

_**_

 

_Lance. 9:51 am._

_“You have to go now,” his mother said down the barrel of a rifle. Lance lay in a heap at her feet, yet even staring into death he couldn’t help admiring his mother; the straightness of her back, the shine of her eyes._

_She clicked off the safety._

_“Lance, my darling boy, you have to go.”_

_Embers danced in her hair. Slowly, fed by the slight breeze, they grew into a flame. Sparks drifted around his mother’s body like ancient magic. Wherever they touched her billowing dress they ignited into flames._

_His mother said, “I’m trying—”_

His mother’s face melted away before him, but the barrel of the rifle stayed behind. Lance furiously blinked the sleep from his eyes and the cobwebs from his brain. One part of him reeled at the visage of his burning mother, the other at what appeared to be Allura, ready to gun him down where he slept.

It probably didn’t speak to his shining moral fiber that this was far from the weirdest situation Lance had ever woken in.

“Um, Princess?” Slowly, Lance reached out and tipped the barrel to a lower, less lethal position. “What’s going on?”

Allura offered him no resistance. There were already glimmering tears in her eyes, but now they grew to a crescendo and she let out a sob, collapsing onto her knees in front of the bed.

“Hey! Hey.” Lance struggled to sit up. He took a moment to gasp at the stabs of pain in his legs and the lesser spasms across his body. Then, somehow managing to clumsily scoot his way over to Allura, he put a hand on her shoulder and gently eased the rifle from her grip. “Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Allura’s hands muffled her voice. “Forgive me.”

“I—I do.”

“Not _you._ ” She looked up at him, and her gaze held such fury that it drove Lance back. Muscles tensed under his grip and she swatted his hand away, standing just as quickly as she had fallen. “I don’t need your forgiveness.”

“Woah, ok, look I don’t know what’s going on, ok? Why don’t we just...take a little chill pill, alright?”

“I will not take a ‘chill pill.’ This is all your fault! Just because I didn’t shoot you, don’t think I won’t hurt you.”

Suddenly, despite just having woken up from a what was probably a long sleep, Lance felt very tired. Indignation swelled in his chest.

“You know what? Fuck off. I’m not scared of you. In the last two days I’ve been shot, shot _at,_ cut, stabbed,” he was counting off the grievances on his fingers, pretty sure that he would have a grow a couple new ones to get the job done. “...poisoned, bashed in the head by an old lady with a rock, thrown off my horse, uh, betrayed by my boyfriend and who knows who else, questioned and beat up by Zarkon, and kidnapped by you. So yeah, I’m done being afraid. I’m outta here. Peace.”

“You’re—you were—wait, where are you going?”

“To find my boyfriend,” Lance spit. A couple of deep breaths prepared him to stand, and then he was hobbling across bedroom of what looked to be a fairly fancy house. He ignored the agony of the bullet wounds in his legs, his knuckles. A faint memory came back to him of punching Keith. Good. Lance felt like he could use throwing another good hook right about now.

“Wait!” This time it was Allura grabbing his shoulder. Lance let her stop him, but only because he was too weak to do otherwise. “Wait,” she said again. “You said you were interrogated by _Zarkon?_ ”

“Yeah. Real nice dude. Gave me this.” Lance lifted up the shirt he was wearing that didn’t belong to him to reveal the long gash travelling across his belly. Something churned in his stomach; the gash was festering purple now, like some sort of mutant infection.

A look of horror crawled across Allura’s face. She leaned down close to the gash, fingers almost but not quite touching it. “So Keith was right,” she whispered. “It _is_ druid poison.”

“Yeah, well, whatever it is, I don’t have much time left. So if you’re done threatening me, I gotta go try to save Keith’s stupid ass.”

“Keith is asleep; he’s been up for hours taking care of you. And neither of you are in any position to go anywhere.” Her face softened. “Look, I’m sorry about...everything. I’m just trying to save the people I love. And I already gave my word to Keith that I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Lance held her eyes for a moment, then hobbled to the bed stand and scooped up his watch. Relief washed over him; he still had time. The clock hadn’t run dry yet. _Pidge, Hunk, wherever you are...I really hope you’re not getting caught._

His head spun like the morning after he had been convinced to try tequila for the first time. Reluctantly, Lance let himself drop back onto the bed.

“You were muttering something,” Allura said, sitting next to him. She leaned forward to rest her arms on her thighs, staring at the polished hardwood floor. “A lot of things, actually. While you were sleeping. They sounded like nightmares.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been having a few of those lately.”

She looked at him.

“You’ve run into the Galra before.”

It wasn’t a question. Lance wasn’t sure how she knew, but then again, he thought he recognized something in her face; a deep ache of sadness and something buried, long forgotten but never gone. He resisted the knee-jerk instinct to crack joke to cope in the face of pain.

“Who did you lose?” Lance asked, voice tight. His thoughts were getting dangerously close to that forbidden place now. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to have this conversation, but the hurt within him felt like an itch or a tooth that was gone, the empty space left behind that needed to be explored. He had never talked like this with anyone. Not even Keith. Had never come close to touching what was broken within him, and now here he was with a near stranger, asking her to spill her guts.

Allura sighed and reached for a photo on a nearby table. “My father.” She showed the photo to him; it was of a handsome, middle-aged man with dark skin but the same shockingly white hair as Allura. He had an easy air about him, the smile of someone who was in a secret with you. Yet he was also powerful. Confident. Unshakeable. All this, just from one photo.

A lump slowly formed in Lance’s throat, gathering mass like a pearl.

“How?”

“Galra.” Allura took a shaky breath. “Look, Lance, I’m afraid I have not been completely honest with you. I told you and Keith before that my father worked with Zarkon, and that Zarkon is coming for Altea. That much is true. But the real story is somewhat more complicated. It...it was Father gave Zarkon the loan needed to start the Galra company. Back then, it was called the Black Lion Initiative.”

“How did he end up out here?”

She waved a hand through the air. “Father always loved adventure. Beginning a new settlement in the west, a new life, building something from nothing...he couldn’t resist. He wanted to pave the way for those who would come after. For me.” Lance closed his eyes and leaned back on the bed, listening to this young woman tell her story.

“When father found the ore, he decided to leave it in the ground, despite the wealth it would bring us. He built Altea as a bastion to protect it and the people who had dedicated their lives to its glow.” Bitterness tainted her voice. “Zarkon did not have that restraint. When word reached him of the massive Balmera crystals beneath this town, Zarkon met with my father in hopes of drawing up a contract to dismantle Altea so that he could open a strip mine here. His wife, Hoverva, was also keen to get her hands on the substance to continue her experiments. But my father refused. He claimed the crystals were living beings, or produced by one that lives deep beneath the earth. The beast communicates with a select few through the crystals. It shares energy. Resources. _Life._ ”

_His entire attention was taken up by the beautiful blue glow, the pulsing light that beat within the crystals like a living thing._

_The blue crystals, singing to him. Soothing him in the bloody dark._

“But the crystals were not to be exploited without consequence. Zarkon’s greed and industry delivered pain to the great Balmera, and eventually drove it to waking before its time.”

“What happened?” Lance asked, voice small.

Allura drew a breath, staring with red-rimmed eyes at a time Lance couldn’t see. “Death. The Balmera rose, but it was not onto Altea as we had feared. It was under Zarkon. When it broke the surface of the earth, it shattered his estates; his mansion, stables, and surrounding structures...all of it, wiped out. And his wife was among the first to be crushed.

“And it would have been the end of all of Texas had not it been for my father. He was able to control the Balmera and coax it back into sleep.” She put a hand over her mouth, as if unable to continue. But still, words came through, bubbling up to the surface despite the miles of ocean overhead. “But Zarkon did not see it that way. He thought that my father had somehow ordered the Balmera to destroy his home. In his unwillingness to face the consequences of his own actions, Zarkon turned on his greatest ally.

“Mad with grief and rage and greed, he flew into a black fury and...and—”

“Allura.”

“Zarkon murdered my father.” Lance opened his eyes and found Allura shaking uncontrollably. “Right in front of me. I was _there_. I watched father di—”

Tears choked out her words, and she was sobbing, trembling like a leaf in a rainstorm. Lance scooched to the edge of the bed and gingerly put his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His heart fluttered at what was to come next. “I know how you feel.”

The ugly, twisted knot inside his chest recoiled at the thought of being dragged into the light, but now Lance ignored all that. He had said it himself; he was finished running away from his fear and his pain. Here, at the edge of his physical and mental endurance, he didn’t have the strength to keep the ghosts at bay. His only options now were to let them out or let himself be devoured by their spectral clutches.

“My...my mama...my papa—” without warning, tears clogged his eyes, filling up to the brims of his eyelids and then spilling over like a river. Just touching that place made him feel fragile, feel the crush of the horrible memories threatening to drag him under.

And this time, instead of fighting and pushing them away and locking them up to fester, Lance set them free.

He told Allura everything.

He told her of the morning when his father had gone off with his rifle and not come back, when his mama had heard the hoofbeats and sent him out to the creek to get water. The feel of the hot sun on his neck and the grimy sand slipping into his boots. He told her how he had come back to see his homestead burning and had turned tail and fled, ran until his feet bled without a single thought for his family, how he had gotten turned around, found himself in the cool embrace of a hollow within a hill near his home. Minutes had ticked by as he ignored the shouting and the acrid smell of burning horseflesh. Then, he could stand it no longer.

Words and words and words poured out of Lance’s mouth: he had watched his papa gunned down for sport, watched, limp-limbed, as his mother had been dragged into the burning stables. He had watched, and that was all.

Tears ran down his cheeks until he had nothing left to cry; only dry hiccups squeezed their way up his throat.

And after he had witnessed his papa’s brains spread like birdseed in the dust, Lance had found himself back in that hollow. The bullet he had taken in his arm was enveloped in a cool blue light, and that was all he had known.

He looked at Allura, unable to contain the tectonic, earth-shattering weight of all of it. “I watched them die,” he said again. “I didn’t do anything. _Why didn’t I do anything?_ ”

All Allura could do was shake her head mutely, tears streaming down the sharp lines of her cheekbones, and Lance realized: they were the same. They had both been bystanders as their parents had been cut down for slaughter in front of them like so many cattle, blown apart like fields in a dust storm.

They collapsed into each other. It was the worst pain of his life, telling this story. Lance had spent every day, every year since that moment binding away those memories and forming himself into something more, something tempered by the flames that had fed off his mother’s body. But now those binding were ash, and he remembered, and he made himself choke out the charred words that cut his throat as they passed: Lance saw himself emerging from the hollow, exhausted but unharmed. He felt the hot, burned timbers under his fingers as he walked through the remains of his homestead. The sickening reverberations of bones cracking under his feet; there were too many to tell which were horses and which were his mother’s. If her skull had survived the inferno, he could not find it. He was too scared to go near his papa’s corpse; the most he could manage was to cover him with a signed blanket and wait for the birds to arrive.

And then, there had been only a terrible emptiness. Lance had waited for the hatred to fill that void, but it had never came. He had prayed for a thirst for vengeance, but none was granted. Instead, there was a hard little ball of self-loathing that settled nicely into his gut, where it would poison him like lead for the rest of his life.

He might have stayed there forever had it not been for Blue. Laying in the ash, Lance felt a shadow drop over him. He told Allura how he wanted it so badly to be the Galra, coming back to finish their slaughter.

“But it wasn’t,” he said, voice husky. Instead, a cool muzzle had nudged his ears, blowing hot air onto his face. When Lance looked up, he discovered Blue, the leggy little foal he had helped birth earlier that season. She was badly burned across her back legs and belly, but, against all odds, alive. And if Lance had been a more spiritual person he would have believed that it was his mother’s spirit standing in front of him staring from the eyes of that horse.

But any belief in a god, capital-G or otherwise, had been burned away.

And now, letting himself think about it, Lance knew why the Galra had come: for the Balmera crystals obviously bursting from the ground around his home. The same man had killed his and Allura’s parents for the same reason. Like it or not, Lance realized, he was bound to what was happening. His fate, the Balmera, Allura and Altea and the Galra, the Blades...they were all tied together by Zarkon’s greed and grief.

 _Are you going to let it move you? Are you gonna learn from your mistakes, asshole?_ He knew the ghost of his family was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t figure out what.

Lance gritted his teeth. Survival. That was his essence, nothing else. Survival and loathing. Not revenge. Not anything.

“We dragged each other to the nearest town,” Lance said. He had fallen headfirst into Allura’ lap, letting her pants soak up the wetness of his eyes, and she let him lay there. There was a deep exhaustion in his bones, like he had just passed through the brunt of a storm and found himself in the eye, the world in tatters around him while the sun shown. “And after that I...I found other people. A guy who was looking for a family. A girl looking for her brother. People who had nobody else. Until we had each other.”

Silence. Only Allura’s warm arms and the short hot puffs of her breath on his neck.

“I remember,” Lance said slowly, “when I was a kid, I was sitting with my papa watching birds wheel around in the sky.” He felt utterly spent, drained, done in for. There was no more despair left in his voice. Instead, all he was focused on was watching himself speak the words as if he had no control of his own lips.

“And my papa was telling me stories about ancient warriors fighting against terrible odds. He said that when every one of the hopes of these warriors were destroyed, they still didn’t give up. They would never stop protecting the people they loved. But they only had one thing left to give. So the warriors would pick themselves up, raise their weapons, and charge their enemy even in the face of certain death, because in this charge they might buy their loved ones time, and they might inspire them with their courage. Then they would be cut down. But it wasn’t a defeat. The warrior’s body was a symbol of bravery. It was said that the warriors would die with a smile on their face, for they had triumphed in a way the enemy would never understand. This was called Bloodriding.”

Lance sighed, long and low. “I know the stories aren’t real, and it sounds dumb, but every night since that day I wonder why I didn’t Bloodride. I should have. _I should have_.”

Lance’s eyes travelled, as if tugged, to the doorway. And there, standing listening, arms folded, was Keith.

Some part of him had felt his boyfriend’s presence during the story, but he hadn’t let himself look that way until just now to confirm it. Lance drew a breath, his lungs rattling. Keith hung in the doorway, evidently unsure of Lance’s reaction and of himself. He looked good. Unharmed. His hair was washed and pulled back into a small bun, and he wore a clean white shirt with his usual vest and golden buttons. Lance drank in the sight of him.

The only blotch on the perfect canvas of Keith was the purple bruise growing on his jawline. Lance felt the smallest spasm of sympathy and immediately stamped it out. More emotions flickered through his head; rage, terrible rage. Hurt. Resentment. Worry and doubt and happiness at seeing Keith unharmed. More anger, more melancholy at that broken thing between them.

“You left me,” Lance whispered, from the safety of Allura’s embrace.

“I know.”

“You said you wouldn’t. And you did.”

“I know.”

“I should hate you.”

“I...I know.”

Lance was standing by this point, having drawn himself from Allura’s lap. He ignored the pain. Instead, he held Keith’s gaze as he walked over to him with excruciating slowness.

“I shot myself just to be sure that you would take me in and not run away as soon as you freaking _saw_ me.”

Shock flashed across Keith’s face, and some petty part of Lance was glad to see it.

“Lance, there’s something I have to—”

“Stop talking. Please.”  

And for the first time in what seemed like months, like the tide rushing in, like the swell of a great wave, ignoring the pain of his wounds, Lance spilled forward and kissed Keith.

Their lips met with stunning ferocity; Lance found that he was starving, that some baleful force within him had been hungry for the all-destroying fire and ice that was the two of them together. And Keith’s lips were soft, so soft at first while Lance drove forward. And while there was something off balance about the way their lips met, he pushed it from his head. They were together again and that was all that mattered..ight?

For the first time, after reliving the end of the world and reuniting with Keith, Lance thought he might have an inkling of Keith and Allura were talking about; somehow, he had found that he was no longer alone in the world. He had Pidge, and Hunk, and Keith, always Keith. And now, impossibly, inevitably, the thought of letting Keith die was unbearable to him. It had been ever since he had woken up and found Keith spirited away by Allura. This whole ordeal had been an exercise in destroying all the principles that kept Lance’s ass alive: going out of your way to save someone you loved, putting your own neck on the line. And now, somehow, despite all of his best efforts, Lance had managed to let Keith and the rest of his gang grow into the one thing he feared the most: a family. _A liability._

 _Doing the right thing is stupid._ That had been the mantra that had kept him alive for over thirteen years. But now? If it came down to it, Lance wasn’t sure what he would do if forced to choose. Pidge and Hunk were supposed to have been his tools, Keith a simple fling. When had they become more than that? Was this what other people felt all the time? Lance shuddered. Because if so, it was disgusting. _Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, cowboy._

Keith broke away for breath, smiled into Lance’s mouth. His hand had travelled up Lance’s shirt and shied away when it touched his wound.

“Sorry—Lance, can I ask what happened? This knife wound, it’s Druid stuff. I’ve seen it before.”

Lance sighed. He leaned his forehead against Keith’s and muttered into the space of their own little world together. “After you left, Zarkon found me. I tried to negotiate. Didn’t go so hot. Zarkon gave me this little party favor and told me I had to bring you to him or…” he waved a hand in the air. “Or I turn into a human oilwell, apparently.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“That’s where this gets, ah...tricky. I didn’t ride all the here just so I could punch you. Even though it felt nice.”

“Thanks for that one.”

“Yeah, still not sorry.” Lance took Keith’s hand, rubbed his thumb in little circles in Keith’s palm. “And there’s one more thing you lied to me about: the Blades.”

Lance looked carefully for Keith’s reaction. He coughed slightly, turning his head away.

“Are you a Blade? Or is it just Shiro?” The question hung in the air, oily and dripping. Lance dreaded the answer. He dreaded what it meant. If Keith was a Blade, how much of this had he planned? Was he going to run away from Lance from the beginning? Everything was messed up, confused, swirling together. Lance had thought Allura had given Keith the idea to help Altea. But if Keith was a Blade of Montana, this whole thing could have been his doing. Was Keith really capable of that? Of deceiving Lance for that long? Of _using_ him like that?

_Maybe he had to._

_Too bad. I don’t care._

Lance dropped Keith’s hand. “I thought you trusted me, dude. I thought we told each other everything.”

“Everything as in, the company I _work for_ killed your _family?_ You think I wouldn’t have liked to know that?” Keith shot back, and Lance felt it like a suckerpunch. He shrank away. “No, Lance, I didn’t mean—”

 _Yes, you did._ “I was trying to protect...” Lance untangled himself from Keith, suddenly feeling that yawning space between them again. He sighed. “Forget it.” There was other shit to be done right now; he didn’t have time to fight with his boyfriend. That would have to come later. ”But Keith, you don’t understand; this isn’t just about you or Altea anymore. Zarkon’s found Shiro.”

Fear crept into Keith’s eyes. “ _What?_ ”

“Or I guess he’s close enough that it doesn’t matter. He knows you’re connected to the Blades and if you give yourself to him, he’s gonna torture you for info. You won’t get to go back your old life, because after he makes you tell him everything about the Blades, he’ll kill you.”

Lance watched the implications sink in; Keith swallowed and started pacing around the room. Silent up until now, Allura stood and cleared her throat.

“So what does this mean for Altea? Zarkon will no longer accept Keith in exchange for our safety?”

“‘Fraid not, Princess. That’s why Zarkon sent me; he wants Keith without the legally binding contract from you involved.” Lance turned to Keith. “And if you try to bargain, he’ll probably just kill you rather than be pushed into a contract to save Altea. Keith’s knowledge is useful, not necessary. You dying will only slow his hunt for the Blades down.”

Allura sank back onto the bed. She stared dead ahead, her gaze a thousand miles away.

“That’s it, then. He’s outplayed us. It’s over.”

“Princess-”

“No. I will _not_ allow you to fall into his hands, Keith. I cannot ask that of you.” Allura caught Lance’s eye, and he knew she was thinking of the rifle she had aimed at his face a quarter hour ago. Her eyes begged forgiveness. “Not if it means your life.” She wiped a hand across her face. “We tried our best, but it’s over. Altea—I—am simply out of cards to play.”

Despite the absolute clusterfuck of emotions raging in his head, or maybe because of them, Lance couldn’t help but grin. “Lucky for you Princess, I’m an excellent poker player. I happen have a plan, and it involves lots of things going _boom.”_ A shaky breath. He was too tired for deceit. “Look, Allura, if I’m being honest? My plan...it’s really only to save Keith and my friends. But if you come, maybe you can find a way to help Altea. Or some sort of closure or something.”

Keith shook his head. “Whatever your plan is, you can’t go anywhere the way you are; I don’t think you’ll last much longer as target practice.”

Frowning down at his body, Lance had to admit that Keith might have a point; he had been pushed to the limits of his pain tolerance and beyond lately. Come to think of it, he wasn’t quite sure he could even ride a horse in his current state.

“Well, I’m not sure about… _things going boom_ ,” Allura sighed, rising and clasping her hands together. “But your injuries, at least, I can help with.”


	5. Tick, Tock (part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could it be? A DOUBLE UPDATE! This is my sorry-for-disappearing-present. Enjoy!

_Lance. 11:00 am._

The lantern cast a warm bubble of light, protecting and guiding their group as they descended into the earth beneath the house, Lance with one arm around Keith and Allura’s shoulders. With every agonizing step he took deeper into the earth, the air grew colder, wetter, and another adjective Lance couldn’t quite grasp, something more...ancient.

“Father dug this tunnel before he built anything else in Altea,” Allura was saying as they helped Lance hobble down the carved stairs. “For whatever reason, some people are gifted with a special connection to the Blamera. Father was one of them. He heard its call; it was in terrible pain. I heard it too, though I was too young at the time to understand its suffering.”

“What was wrong with it?” Keith asked, adjusting Lance’s weight.

“Pressure. There’s a great river nearby that has cut a deep canyon into the ground. The Galra, by recently building a great dam several miles outside of Altea, have altered the flow and path of the river in ways we cannot understand. As far as Father could tell, something had changed enough about the geology of this particular place. His best guess was that the river’s path eventually went underground and cooled or nourished the Balmera; the water’s absence would certainly explain the rising geothermal temperatures during the last decade. Without the river the Balmera is being cooked alive by its own body heat. Father constructed this cavern to study it, to see if he could find a way to help.”

Something about all this sounded familiar to Lance. “Like relieving pressure from lungs filling with fluid. What?” Allura and Keith had stopped to look at him. “Mama used to help people with stuff like that” Lance muttered, suddenly abashed. “She said that sometimes a little pain was necessary to relieve a lot more.” Lance waited for the spike of agony that came from thinking about his mother, but surprisingly, it didn’t come. Instead there was just a dull throbbing. But, it was no longer unbearable. Huh. Imagine that.

“Your mother sounds like she was a very wise woman,” Allura whispered, face soft in the honeyed light.

“Yeah. Yeah, she was the best.”

Silence fell over their party for a while after that, each of them lost in their own thoughts and their footfalls and the slowly increasing dripping above their heads. Lance wondered when he and Keith would finally get everything straight, or if he was going to die before that point. Or get blown up. Whatever.

Keith had lied to him about being a Blade. That was totally different than Lance not telling Keith about who had killed his parents. Right? Sure it was. Telling Keith hadn’t been relevant, it would only have hurt him. Whereas Keith had used Lance. He had been using Lance right up until he had shot himself to get through Keith’s thick goddamn skull. A spot near Lance’s temple throbbed. He wasn’t good at being mad at Keith for so long. Usually, when they had first met each other, getting mad had mostly come from a place of sexual tension-charged competition. Being angry with Keith mostly just made Lance want to kiss him by force of habit. Now, he still wanted to kiss him, but strangling him felt like a good option too.

The stairs grew rougher, the rock cut increasingly haphazardly and the passage squeezing narrower and narrower until, without warning, Allura came to a halt.

“We’ve arrived.” Her voice bounced away on the stone. She took the lantern from Keith and gently blew it out.

“Hey! What are you—” Keith began, but trailed off when something began to shine on his face, something that was very much not the lantern. Squinting, Lance leaned closer. It almost looked like…

“Light,” he said, unable to keep the wonder from his voice.

“This far down? How is that even possible?”

“Not sunlight, Keith. Light from the crystals themselves.”

Allura stepped past them, taking the lead as they descended a final few steps to where the stone finally leveled off into a flat pathway. Turning to face them, Allura smiled a small, serene smile. The small tattoos beneath her eyes almost looked like they were emitting their own, faintly pinkish light.

“Tread carefully. Do not make more noise than is necessary. Are you ready?”

For once not trusting himself to speak, Lance nodded, and found Keith doing the same. Allura turned, beckoning, and disappeared around an invisible corner cut into the rockface.

Lance and Keith glanced at each other, held a silent conversation. It took all of Lance’s remaining willpower not to crack a joke about why Keith was looking so sad and blue in this light. Probably best if he didn’t piss off Princess Trigger Finger up there _. Who knows what kind of magical glow-y powers she has._

Then, with only a little trepidation in their steps, they followed the princess.

And found themselves on the business end of a musket.

“Oh, _come on!_ ” Lance whined. All of his weight was on Keith now, so he really didn’t have anywhere to run. “Can’t I go anywhere without someone trying to kill me?”

“Who are you? State your name!”

“Shay! Shay, it’s quite alright. Please, lower your weapon.” Lance squinted past the gun, and saw that its owner was a stocky young woman, probably around his age. She wore simple but clean rough hewn clothes, and her arms looked to be bigger around than his thighs. Interestingly,  the look in her eyes wasn’t one of anger, but something more like fear.

Allura was jogging back up to the girl, but Lance gave her his most charming grin. “It’s okay Princess, no need to panic. I’m sure this fine young lady wouldn’t screw up a face as pretty as mine, am I right?”

“Perhaps you presume too much,” the girl who must be Shay said, but lowered her gun nonetheless. There. That was more like it; now if only his devastatingly good looks had had the same effect on Zarkon. Lance couldn’t help but to keep nursing his hurt pride over the incident; Zarkon had beat him up even after getting the full package. Literally.

Allura put a hand on Shay’s arm. “Keith, Lance, I would like to introduce you to Shay. Shay; Keith and Lance. She’s the guardian of this Balmera cavern.”

“Guardian?”

“I watch over this sacred place,” Shay said, eyes flitting between Keith and Lance, “and protect it from outsiders such as you.”

“Looks like she doesn’t get outside much herself,” Lance muttered to Keith, and got an elbow in the ribs for it.

Keith cleared his throat and stepped forward. “It’s nice to meet you, Shay. We’re just passing through; we don’t mean any harm to your cavern or your Balmera.”

“And it was I who brought them here,” Allura said. “Shay, Lance here is gravely injured, both from mortal wounds and something more...sinister. Do you think you could help me perform a healing ritual?”

“The Balmera provides aid for all those who deserve it. If his cause is just and true, I am certain aid will be given to this Lance.”

Relief washed through Lance. Haggar’s wound might actually be healed, not to mention all the little cuts and bullet holes and bruises decorating rest of his body. And if Allura wasn’t out of her mind and really could manage to make him better again with whatever magicky crystals these were, then maybe his plan had a real chance at succeeding and they wouldn’t all die. That would be nice.

“Um, question.” Lance hobbled after Keith. “Is this going to hurt? Or give me any grey hairs? Or, like, make me look different? Because I like the way I look. And if whatever voodoo ceremony this is is gonna change that…”

Shay’s eyes—which almost appeared to be glowing yellow—swept up and down Lance’s frame. “No, the process will be painless. Perhaps even pleasurable. Now please follow me, and do not touch _anything_.”

Without another word, Shay turned her back to them and led them deeper down the passage, Allura, Keith and Lance in tow. Without the lantern, Lance noticed they were all bathed in a fuzzy blue glow that appeared to be emanating from pea-sized crystals in the stone walls around them. Call him crazy, but he could have sworn there were little whispering voices in those crystals, too, voices that all came together to form something...more? Deeper? He didn’t have a good word in English for it.

“Jeeze,” Lance whispered to Keith, his arms once again around two sets of shoulders. “What’s her problem?”

Allura sighed. “Please, forgive her. Shay comes from a large family of guardians, many of whom have been massacred by the Galra and their greed in the last decade. She is right to be wary of outsiders.”

“Oh,” Keith said, sounding a little sick.

They kept going. And the further down they walked, the more Lance felt like there were eyes on the back of his neck. He kept hearing snatches of sound. The skittering of stone on stone. A guttural, alien noise. When he heard that he whipped his head around as fast as he could and thought he caught the glint of two yellow eyes in the dark.

“Uhhh, Shay?” Lance gulped. “Does anything other than you live down here?”

Her voice floated back from where she led the procession. “Oh yes. There are many small species who enjoy the darkness, but I suppose the most important is the Balmera’s offspring.”

“Offspring?” _Oh, great._

“It’s quite alright, Lance.” Allura said. She looked back at him and winked. “The Balmera cubs and I have been friends for years. I met them in my childhood when they were infants. I believe they’re nearly ready to reach puberty, correct?”

“Yes.” Shay stopped and gazed off into the darkness. “In fact, the oldest have been beginning to get a bit...feisty...as they tend to do before they settle down for adulthood. But please, do not have fear. There is a very low chance they will harm us.”

Lance moved in close to whisper to Keith’s ear.  “Princess Trigger Finger is friends with teenage monsters? Of course. Why not. Makes perfect sense.”  
“Shhh,” Keith scolded. But he didn’t have any more time to tell Lance to shut up.

That was because, after passing under a low overhang, the cavern opened up and out before them.

Keith and Lance gasped.

After travelling for so long in such claustrophobic passageways, the cavern of the Balmera was enough to make Lance dizzy; the space stretched for what seemed like miles of rolling stone hills dusted with the glowing blue crystals. Above them, the vaulted ceiling swooped and soared and plunged in sleepy waves, dripping with crystals bigger than entire teams of horses. Fountains of shining water fell from fissures in the rock overhead and formed pools and rivers on the dusty grey ground. It was an entire lost world, a sunken planet kept secret by the earth.

And then, far into the hazy distance, Lance saw it.

“Is that…”

He couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him; there, at the edges of his vision, was a sea of glowing blue-green water, a vast expanse of water stretching into infinity. Suddenly, Lance was hit with nostalgia for half-remembered beaches and coastlines, foggy recollections of daydreams filled with the smell of salt and sun-kissed skin and soaring birds and the ocean, more than any of it, the _ocean._

“Lance?” Keith shifted his arm around Lance’s back. “You’re crying.”

He was right; Lance was suddenly aware of fat tears rolling down his face. Not tears of sadness or pain, but something sweeter, softer; more of an ache that he had been holding for so long it had become as effortless as breathing.

Sniffling, Lance wiped a hand across his face. “I’m okay. Honest. Let’s just...let’s keep moving.”

 

**

 

They moved like ghosts, reverent of the obviously holy world they had come to; Allura making chalk markings on the ground, Shay kneeling by a large crystal, head bent as if in prayer. Lance lay half-asleep in Keith’s lap, fingers intertwined in his boyfriend’s, gazing up at the pulsating bed of stars that were the Balmera crystals. It all seemed part of a dream.

After another hour of walking, Shay had led their party to a circle of twenty-foot tall crystals surrounding a curiously flat slab of stone. “Once every few ages, there is volcanic activity in this area,” she explained. “The lava flows renew the caverns and provide opportunities for the Balmera to grow and shift.” Keith had whispered in Lance’s ear about how he found it kind of beautiful, this renewal out of something destructive. Part of Lance wanted to be dramatic and draw some sort of parallel between that and his rising out of the ashes of his home, but after walking so long he mostly just wanted to sit down.

“The ritual,” Shay was saying, “requires the life energy of all who are present. For everything to flow smoothly, the energy must not be blocked from person to person. You must be open with each other. Trust is key.”

Lance watched Keith’s eyes flick away at that last bit. _Huh._ Did Keith actually have it within his stubborn little body to feel bad about what he did? Now that the chances of a Galra blowing their heads off at any given moment were close to zero, at least for now, Lance could slow down and allow himself to be salty again.

Was Keith really sorry? Technically, he had never actually apologized. All he had really done was let Lance kiss him and then throw his family’s death in his face. No, he wasn’t sorry for using Lance or for keeping secrets that could get them both killed. In Keith’s head it was all probably justified in the name of some greater good or whatever, which was all fine and dandy unless you happened to be the idiot boyfriend that literally got caught in the crossfire.

“Trust shouldn’t be an issue for any of us,” Allura said brightly.

Shay’s yellow eyes burned holes into Lance’s head. “Good. Because if the ceremony is compromised, there is no telling how the Balmera may react. Remember: you are only guests here.”

“Sounds fake,” Lance muttered, “but okay.” If this weird girl wanted to use whatever rock mumbo jumbo she was talking about to try and heal him, she could go right ahead. She couldn’t exactly make him any worse.

“Let us begin,” Shay said.

In her voice that was thunder on distant hills, Shay explained to them the intricacies of the ceremony. Lance laid down while the three of them formed a circle around him; Shay and Allura would draw energy from the Balmera crystals like water from a well, and it would enhance as it flowed through Keith and finally into Lance, healing his many wounds. As Shay talked, the skeptical part of Lance began to soften. Maybe the goosebumps rippling up and down his neck and arms weren’t there for nothing. He had to admit this this place felt...spiritual. And yeah, ok, he had never been one to go to church (not that there was one for miles around) and Mama had rarely prayed to the cross statue hanging in their cabin, but Lance still could tell when things were about to get mystical, and this was definitely one of those times. The air seemed to be holding its breath and exhaling all at once, charged with something... _more._

That’s when Lance opened his eyes and realized the giant crystal monoliths forming the circle around them were glowing.

“Holy shit,” slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. He glanced over at Keith, bathed in the blue light, and also giving him a weird look. “What?”

“Nothing,” Keith says, face softening with a smile. “You’re just cute.”

And just like that, they were back in a posh hotel room in Chicago, just the two of them and acres of empty mattress and clean sheets. Whisky brought in on silver trays, liquid sunlight flowing lazily through the window, the fit of their bodies together.

 _You’re mad at him_ , Lance tried to remind himself, but it was really freaking hard to be mad at someone when he looked like that.

And he might have said something else then, something that started with _can we just talk to each other instead of whatever this is now,_ but he didn’t have time. Because if the crystals had been glowing blue before, now they were burning suns, pulsating with an energy that seemed more than what was possible, as if their light was coming from inside them, which was ludicrous, duh.

Lance gasped when a tendril of cold touched the small of his back.

“It has begun,” Shay said again.

The cold spot spread from his back up the line of his spine and down it, slowly reaching into the depths of his battered body. It would have been uncomfortable if not for the fact that it reminded Lance, somehow, of the ocean. The cold of the saltwater, the feeling of coming unmoored from solid ground, floating in a sea of...what? Mystical rock-creature energy? Lance tried to crack an eye open and found he couldn’t. He had been paralysed, caught in the grip of the Balmera. His skin tingled in a hundred different spots, spatterings of his cells lighting up like stars in the sky, and it took him a second to realize that the itching was his cuts closing up; he could feel his skin knitting back together. The multiple bullet wounds in his legs sealed up like a cork being popped in reverse.

Lance was also aware of his thoughts flowing through Shay’s head, through Allura’s and Keith’s. Well, maybe not his thoughts, more like...his own energy. His intentions. His headspace. Some other sense could discern Shay pulling power from deep, deep below them, one hand on the smooth rock, the other in Allura’s. _Sweet._

The cold reached the ugly and festering wound on his stomach.

Suddenly, Lance tripped over a hitch in Keith’s head. It was a thought. No...more like...a dream. He could tell that it was a recent dream, still fading from Keith’s memory like the spiraling white images that formed when he pressed his fingers to his eyelids too hard. A stranger stepping into a place where he wasn’t unwelcome but also not invited, Lance brushed his hand against the barest edge of the dream.

And what he saw opened up a chasm in his chest:

 

_He was going to double-cross Lance, use him as the perfect cover to get away from the Galra who had unwittingly taken him to Texas—he could hardly be blamed for his escape if it was against his will—and then dump Lance as soon as they neared Altea._

 

It confirmed everything he had feared during the descent into the caverns. _What if...I’m not good enough for him? I’m not. I’m not a good enough to be a boyfriend, you idiot. Just a tool. And I didn’t even do that right._

Lance sensed Keith’s interest piquing at his presence. A moment later he _knew_ , knew with horrifying certainty, that Keith had felt Lance touch the dream.

Recoiling as if burned, Lance retreated deep into the safety of his own body and the slowly spreading chill. Only now something wasn’t right. The soothing coolness was having trouble breaking into the flesh of his lower abdomen that was beginning to fester and take on an unseemly shade of purpley-black.

 _C’mon,_ Lance thought. _You little Balmera...healing...thing. You can do it._ But no matter how much he goaded it on, something just wasn’t right. It was like he had been riding Blue at a full gallop and her stamina had all at once began to flag, her muscles tiring, her flank flecked with sweat. The ground was slowing beneath him, the heat of his body replacing the healing chill. Sputtering through their minds was the Balmera energy and it grew weaker by the second. And though the rest of his body felt a hundred times better, still the wound from Zarkon’s knife was not healed. Through all of their connection, Lance could sense the flow hiccuping between his and Keith’s touch. Something wasn’t allowing it through; Shay had told them all that trust was key. But Lance trusted Keith, right?

Well, two days ago he had. But the last forty eight hours had been something of a rough patch, the last forty eight seconds definitely took the cake for awful revelations. Maybe the healing did have a hurdle after all.

“This is not right,” Shay broke the humming silence and the living flow of energy by taking her hand off the cool stone. Suddenly, Lance found he was able to open his eyes again. His neck and back were sore from laying on the rock; just how long had they been at it?

He glanced at Keith, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. _Fine. Whatever._ But telling himself he didn’t care didn’t make the throbbing in Lance’s chest feel any less like his heart tearing.

Allura frowned at the other girl. “What do you mean, not right? What’s wrong?” Lance could tell just by looking at the crease between Allura’s brows, however, that she was asking out of politeness; she had definitely felt whatever had happened the same as the rest of them. That ugly thing between him and Keith, if it had been subtle before, was definitely not afraid to show itself off now.

In some way, it felt almost better now. Like they had finally dragged their argument into the light and both of them had seen its ugliness. Keith had been using Lance this entire time. Maybe even since they had met. How much was real? The sugar-soft kisses in the Chicago sunlight, Keith’s warm fingers buttoning up Lance’s shirt, the feel of Keith’s stubble rubbing against Lance’s chest. Was it all just Keith burrowing deeper into Lance’s defenses? Lance didn’t know—couldn’t know—just how deep the deception was. Like a tooth that had rotted in his gums, it ached. It hurt so much worse than the wounds that the Balmera had just healed. It hurt so much worse than he expected it to. For all his life Lance had prided himself on not giving a shit. And now, when he had finally decided to give a damn about someone, to put his life on the line for someone that he _loved,_ it was thrown back in his face like a wadded up pile of dirty laundry.

The last few days had been rough with Keith, sure. It wasn’t like they hadn’t argued before. But _this_ . This horrible knowing. He had peered into Keith’s dreams and found them to be turncoats, all of them. Keith was a _spy,_ for fuck’s sake. Or his brother was, or whatever, it didn’t matter. Lying was what he did. And he had certainly done his job on Lance.

_Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid._

“Lance—” Keith began, but then Lance looked at him again, and his own face must have been a hell of a trainwreck, because Keith’s expression shattered. Which, to be honest, Lance took savage pleasure from. He wanted Keith to know what he had done. He wanted Keith to feel all the excruciating torture of his knife in Lance’s back. Earlier, when he had been kissing Keith again, he had told himself he didn’t care about Keith’s lying. But that had been a lie itself. Of course he cared. Just because he told himself something didn’t make it true. And the feeling inside his gut wasn’t that fire that had made him punch Keith before. Now it was just...ice. Some rocky, barren nothing. He didn’t feel anything. Everything was so soaked cold that it had gone numb.

Keith started again. “Lance—”

He was cut off by the sound of gunfire.

 

**

 

Sparks flew from where the bullet struck, not two feet from the rock behind Keith’s head. Allura and Keith both screamed, voices following the heels of the bullet’s echo. Everyone froze, unsure of where the attack had come from.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” a voice floated from the dark, velvety and soft in a way that was just a cover-up, concealing something much more sinister lurking beneath. “But I’m afraid I do not have much time to make my point.”

“There,” Allura hissed, pointing to a lantern bobbing in the dark. But who would follow them all down here just to shoot at them?

As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait long. The lantern light grew until they could make out the dusky form of a tall, elegant man dragging what appeared to be a large sack over his shoulder. White hair fell from beneath a slick black, wide-brimmed hat, framing a face with a jawline that looked as if they would cut you if you weren’t careful. Two long pistols hung at the man’s slender hips, the righthand one accompanied by a sword whose narrow point hung just above the ground. Something about the way this guy moved gave Lance the heebie-jeebies. He didn’t walk so much as flow, as if every motion was liquid silver. And the sack over his shoulder…

“Oh my God,” Allura said. Lance figured it out a second later: it wasn’t a sack.

It was a body.

“Who are you? Go back! You’re not welcome!” Shay stepped forward out of the circle of dying light, fists clenched at her sides, and Lance suddenly found himself appreciative of her enormous arms. Still, she sounded fragile, as if her words fell like wet paper against the intruder.

“I rather believe you’ll rethink your command if you just allow me near you,” he said, sheathing his left pistol. White hair flowed through the air when he jerked his head to the body he held. “After all, this poor fellow doesn’t much time left.”

Lance glanced over at Allura, but she seemed to have frozen in time, eyes wide, trembling, red-rimmed. And Keith...well, he wasn’t about to go running to Keith for advice any time soon. But Keith was staring at the body as if in shock.

“Uh, anybody want to tell me what’s going on?” Lance stepped forward, beside Shay. “As in, who the hell are you?”

“I am—”

“Prince Lotor.” Lance heard the steel in Allura’s voice.

“Wait, Princess, you know this guy?”

“This is no “guy”, Lance. This is a monster.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” The dude—Lotor, apparently—slowly lowered the body to the ground. The body moaned; so he was alive. “As I mentioned, we’re on a rather tight schedule here. I’m afraid your friend doesn’t have much time.”

Lotor let the man drop to his knees, then caught him by the orange hair on his head before he flopped over onto the hard cavern floor, and Lance understood why it had taken him so long to recognize the man; his face was beaten beyond brutality, transfigured into a swollen purple mess.

“No,” Lance breathed.

“ _CORAN!_ ”

Allura’s yell reverberated throughout the caverns, shaking the sharp pillars of stone above their heads. For one single second, Lance swore a pulse of blue light flashed through the stone around them, but that was impossible, of course.

But even so, Lance wasn’t paying attention to Allura. No, all his focus was on Coran, who appeared to be coming around, blinking blearily against the glare of Lotor’s lantern. Specifically, he stared at Coran’s bare chest, where a name had been carved out with a knife, blood running down the letters and pooling in Coran’s belly button and crotch, the letters that spelled his name:

_Lance._

“Let him go. Now.” Trembling, Allura took several swift steps forward, only to have Lotor drop the lantern and draw his pistol in a motion so fast Lance’s eyes had trouble computing the action. The lantern’s glass exploded across the floor, expiring in a brief but brilliant ball of flame and light.

The revolver kissed Coran’s temple.

“Take another step and he’s dead, Princess. And if anyone shoots me, I promise you I can fire faster than I can die.” Lotor _tsked_ through his teeth. “I know, I know, I imagined our reunion to be more of a happy affair too, but such is the way of things.”

“The only reunion I would have with you,” Allura growled, “is one between my bullet and your heart.”

Lotor snorted. “Charming. Aren’t you going to say hello to your dear advisor? Come on, old man, wake up.” Lotor shook Coran’s head like a ragdoll and Coran moaned again, this time his eyes fluttering fully open.

_Lance._

“Tell me, which one of you is the Ghost of the West?” Lotor scanned them all, eyes shining with feral pleasure. “Let’s see...the daughter of a genocidal lunatic, a cave hermitess, a traitor, and…” his eyes finally landing on Lance, raking his body up and down. “Why, you must be our lucky winner. To be honest, I expected more.”

Lance raised an eyebrow in indignation. He also couldn’t stop himself from puffing out his chest a little.

Lotor gaze turned to Keith. “You. Traitor. You must be the beau.” He motioned to the name carved in Coran’s fluttering chest. “Actually, this message is for you.”

Keith didn’t say anything. The veins in his neck were throbbing, his sight never wavering from Coran. “What message?” But it was just talk to buy a few seconds of precious time; everyone understood Zarkon’s meaning perfectly.

Again, Lance stepped forward, hoping Allura or somebody would do the same. Lotor only had so many hands; if they could just catch him off guard, maybe they could—

“Princess.”

At first it wasn’t clear who had spoken. But then, with what looked to be a gargantuan effort, Coran raised his head. “Princess,” he said again.

“You’re going to be okay, Coran. I promise.” Allura had her hands cupped over her mouth, tears falling freely over her shaking fingers.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I...I tried to keep you safe, like your father wanted. That’s all _I_ ever wanted.”

“You haven’t failed. You haven’t.”

“I love you.”

“Coran, _stop—_ ”

Lotor drew Coran up to his full height, ripping open the scabs of Lance’s name anew. Lance’s hand drifted down to the savage cut across his own stomach, a primitive twin of Coran’s.

Out of the corner of his sight Lance saw Keith’s hand snaking down to his holstered pistol. But it wasn’t enough; they needed a distraction, a plan, _something_.

Lance smirked. He was the freaking Ghost of the West; he didn’t need a plan. All he had to do was—

A hand emerged from the shadows and curled around Keith’s mouth.

“Uh-uh-uh! Playing with guns is dangerous, silly!” It took Lance a moment to see the girl, who had apparently ninja-snuck her way over in the dark. She was a full head taller than Keith, her main feature being the gigantic, swinging braid that hung from the top of her head down to nearly her ankles. She stood casually, as if out for a Sunday morning stroll in the park rather than playing assassin down here in this death trap. A wide, easy smile curled the ends of her pouty lips.

“Ah, I see you’ve met one of my generals.” Lotor grinned at the young woman. “Ezor, have the others arrived?”

“Of course.”

The voice came from directly behind Lance’s ear, scaring the shit out of him. He tried to whip around to see who it belonged too, but found his hands in a vice-like grip. Another young woman, probably a few years older than him, was pinching some tendon in his wrists that completely immobilized his hands. Her face bore the features of at least part native blood, though from which tribe or nation Lance couldn’t be certain of in the dark. She was definitely attractive, in a I-could-kill-you-and-smile-over-your-body type of way that Lance wouldn’t say he _wasn’t_ into given the right mood, but of course he would never think like that in a time like this.

Lance managed to turn his head. Allura’s feet weren’t even touching the ground; the woman who held her was so large Lance had probably mistaken her mountain of muscle for a boulder.

Worse, Shay was bound head to toe with a black whip held by a girl wearing an enormous wide-brimmed hat and a rag tied around her eyes. Stranger still was the black cat who sat on her shoulder, peering at Lance with piercing yellow-gold eyes.

A shudder traveled through Lance. Some small little voice of survival whispered that any of these women would kill them in a second.

In short: they were all thoroughly fucked.

“Axca. Zethrid. Narti. Excellent work. I see you’ve all met my generals? Wonderful girls, I can assure you.”

“Can I crush her now?” The woman holding Allura lifted her higher, squeezing so hard Lance could practically feel Allura’s ribs bending. “Her bones are thin and fragile. They want to snap. I can feel them.”

“Control yourself, Zethrid. If you want to crush something, go kill another horse.” Lotor shook out his mane of white hair. “I’ve grown bored of this game. You.” He pointed at Keith. “I assume you can read?”

Keith nodded as if the motion pained him.

Even with how insane this was and how much his goddamn wrists hurt from this lady’s magic grip, some part of Lance was still calm. He himself had been in many similar life-and-death situations, and he had always come out mostly ok. This time would be no different. It couldn’t be.

“Good.” Lotor reached inside his jacket and revealed a little square of paper. He flicked it at Keith. “That is the station at which you are to board my father’s train tomorrow morning. And another message from my father, not on paper: you have all been trampling over the Galra name with little consequence, until now. Rebels and traitors will not be tolerated. It is time you learned that actions have repercussions.” Lotor tapped his revolver against his nose. “Allow me to introduce you to the repercussion.”

Shay’s scream cut above the rest. “NO!”

Coran’s blackened eyes were shining. His split lips were smiling at Allura.

Surely this would be oka—

Hand moving with that same inhuman swiftness and efficiency, Lotor jammed the barrel of the gun into Coran’s temple, pulled back the hammer, and fired.

The world tilted with Coran’s body as it fell.

Lance was vaguely aware of Allura’s screaming sobs, but all he could see was his name in the dead man’s chest:

_Lance._

Blood.

Death.

Agony.

_Lance._

Because of Lance. And it would _become_ Lance, if they continued.

The message to Keith was clear enough, alright.

Coran’s body slumped to the ground. Blood formed a small but quickly widening pool. And the air was alive with the vibrations of Allura’s howls and Keith yelling and Shay, staring level at Lotor with eyes filled to overflowing with terror and fury and seething hatred.

“You do not know what you have done. This ground is sacred to the Balmera. _You do not know what you have done!”_

Lotor’s smirk clearly gave the message that he didn’t give a shit about what he had done. But Lance was watching Coran’s blood, which had managed to flow over to a growth of crystals, immersing them.

The ground moaned.

Lotor’s smirk slipped the barest fraction from his lips.

“What are you talking about?” He strode over to Shay, still bound by Narti’s whip, and yanked her chin upward. “If you value your head, you will not threaten me again, cave witch.”

Shay only stared him down. “Even you are not so foolish as to spill more blood here. Have your people learned nothing? You hurt this Balmera once long ago. You brought it pain and suffering, but we managed to soothe its unrest. Now you have brought death back to this place.”

The panic infecting Lotor’s face was clear. “Father’s plan said—”

Shay laughed, low and long. The laugh of a girl who didn’t care whether she lived or died anymore. “Your father lied. You are a pawn. And now we shall all pay the price.”

Lance had no fucking idea what was going on. Frankly, he didn’t really care at the moment, because just then the ground moaned again and _heaved_ ; fissures shot through the solid stone as if it were a wafer, and tiny chunks of rock began to rain down around their heads. There would be time to dissect whatever the hell Zarkon was planning later; for now, he really just didn’t want to die. That would be nice.

Some small part of him felt bad that he wasn’t more broken up about seeing a man shot point-blank in the face, but hey, it hadn’t been the first time. Honestly, Lance hoped he lived to see it happen again. Ok that thought sounded bad. But if it someone else getting shot, then by definition it wasn’t Lance, which would be ideal.

On the other hand, he didn’t know who the Coran man was, but he did know that Zarkon was toying with them now. Laughing in his friends’ faces.

The notion surprised him. _Wait, is Allura my friend now? Huh. Enemy of my enemy, I guess._

A seismic shift threw the world off balance. Lotor tripped and fell, gun skittering across the smooth rock and disappearing in one of the fissures.

The barest slip in the pressure of Axca’s hold.

_Screw this._

Lance threw all his weight backwards, timing it with the next mini-earthquake. He and Axca fell to the ground together, him landing on her ribs and driving all the air from her chest with a sharp _-oomph_. Scampering, he drew the pistol from her hip and aimed it at the woman holding Keith. In his haste, however, his attention to the rhythm of the quakes had waned, so his shot went wide when his stance was forced off by the next tremor. The bullet flew past Ezor’s head. The hairs in her braid ruffled and she raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow, grinning with what looked to be sharpened teeth.

“Naughty, naughty!”

But the words cost her. Keith twisted from her arms and drove his knee up into her stomach, buying him just enough time to draw a small knife and hurl it, end over end, into Narti’s whip. Lance blinked. When had Keith learned to fight like that?

The hardened leather snapped with a resounding _crack_ , and Shay was free.

_Breath. Feel the ground. You’re a sharpshooter, man._

He glanced sideways; Keith gave him the smallest of nods.

This time, Lance’s aim was true.

Zethrid yelled when the bullet slammed into her calf, and dropped Allura. She caught herself, rolled, and struck snake-like with her foot to hit Zethrid right in her bullet wound. The woman went down like a collapsing brick shithouse. Obscenities poured from her mouth that curled even Lance’s hair, experienced and God-forsaken cusser he was.

But they had forgotten about a player. Ridiculous white mane flashing in the lantern light, Lotor slowly drew himself up from where he had fallen, and the look in his eyes was murder.

Lance knew they had to get out of here and do it fast, otherwise the entire cavern was going to come down on their heads. The only problem was the four bloodthirsty women and Lotor who wanted their heads on a stick, standing in their way. Well, it was possible they might take Keith alive, but Lance wasn’t willing to bet on it. Lotor looked sufficiently rage and adrenaline infused to do just about anything at the moment. Some part of Lance sympathized with the man. Keith tended to have that effect on people.

Still, though, if anyone was gonna take Keith out, it was going to be his boyfriend. Lance sighed.

“Keith! We gotta go, dude.”

“No shit!”

“Nobody,” Lotor spat through gritted teeth, “is going anywhere.”

Lance pointed a finger gun and a real one at him. “Uh, who’s the one holding a gun again? Who’s the one who dropped his like a doofus?”

Shay’s scream echoed across the cavern. “Lance! Do not fire another bullet, or we are all lost to the Balmera!”

He cursed silently to himself: everything was a lot messier without bullets.

“Your are an insufferable twit,” Lotor spat, a lock of sweaty white hair falling in front of his face. He blew it away. “I cannot fathom how anyone can stand to be around you.”

Keith stepped forward. Another knife had appeared in his hand along with his trademark Royally Pissed Off face. The whole sweaty-hair thing was a much better look on him. “That’s my line, asshole.” Arm blurring once again, Keith hurled his knife at Lotor, the blade glinting in the low light like a comet streaking through the atmosphere.

What happened next was even more impressive: instead of falling to the ground and spewing some dramatic death speech, Lotor began to laugh.

Lance squinted. _Holy fuck._

Quivering between Lotor’s fingers was Keith’s knife. He had caught the damn thing.

“Ladies,” Lotor growled, turning the knife around in his delicate fingers. “Kill them. Kill them all.”

“No.” This time it was Allura’s rage that filled the cavern. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.” She turned back to Lance, Keith, and Shay. “I’ll hold them off. You three find a way out. Get the antidote. Whatever it is Zarkon is planning with the Balmera, you’ve got to stop it.”

Lance saw what was going to happen a moment before it did; he knew his beau too well. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s chest just in time to stop him from surging forward to stand beside Allura. Keith’s chest strained in Lance’s arms. He was also vaguely aware through his peripheral vision of the women getting back on their feet, ready to strike at Lotor’s command. If they didn’t make a move soon, there would be no getting out for anyone.

“Princess, I can’t let you do that. This is my responsibility.”

“Your responsibility is to save Lance. You _must_ aid in his plan. Besides, this is not your battle. Not yet.” A look of peace washed over Allura’s face. “Coran was a second father to me. This is where I need to be.”

Shay put her hand on Allura’s shoulder. “And you shall not stand alone. This was my home, and these people have defiled it. My people have all gone on to become one with the Balmera because of this Zarkon. I am the last guardian, and I have failed. I will stand with you.” She turned to Lance. “You now carry some of the energy of the Balmera within you, and I sense you somehow have in the past as well. It is a blessing from a dying god; protect it. And Lance?”

“Yeah?”

Shay knelt, and put her palm to the cool stone floor, and even with the world collapsing around them, it began to glow a soft blue under her touch.

“Run.”

Everything exploded.

Or at least it seemed to. Great pillars of the Balmeran crystal shot from the ground, from the roof of the cavern and from every other direction, shattering the slate stone and turning their disintegrating battleground into one great shitstorm. Lance watched with something like horror and awe as Lotor’s generals were thrown off their feet, yet somehow Shay and Allura remained untouched. Allura raised two fingers to her mouth and let loose a piercing whistle.

All around them, hulking shapes began to shift in the shadows. Lance gulped. The baby Balmera were _not_ something he wanted to stick around for.

 _Go. We’ve gotta go right freaking_ now.

“Keith, c’mon! She’s giving us time!” Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist and tugged towards the direction of the stairway.

Keith turned, the winds of the collapsing cavern whipping black hair around his horrified face. They both had to shout to be heard above the growing storm. “We can’t leave them!”

“I know we can’t!” Lance leaned in and bumped his forehead against Keith’s. In this small space, at least, they could talk normally. “But we have to.” He opened his eyes to look into Keith’s black ones.

Keith nodded. “Let’s go.”

They took off without another word, just in time to see Lotor rising, pointing at them, screaming. But they couldn’t stick around to watch, because whatever Shay had done was really starting to ratchet up; it took everything Lance had to focus on keeping on his feet as he ran, still holding Keith’s hand. Giant crystal chandeliers fell from the roof like a terrible and beautiful rain of death. The ground split beneath their feet. And there was a great undercurrent of a low moaning filled with fear and pain: the Balmera, singing its death song.

They were almost to the stairway. Lance looked back, just once, and caught flashes of the battle: Allura, sword drawn, dueling with Lotor, Ezor, and Narti simultaneously. Shay going punch for punch with Zethrid. But where was-

“Stop.” _Fuck._

Standing in the entrance to the curving stone steps was Axca, pistol raised, face an unreadable mask. Blood trickled from a wound on her forehead and rocks rained down around her, but she seemed to take no notice, or else she didn’t care about getting impaled by a stray stalactite.

Keith clenched Lance’s hand tighter. “Let us through.”

“Why should I?” There was a venom in Axca’s voice. A stinging scorn that almost physically pinched Lance’s skin. “I was in your position once. When Zarkon decided he wanted to mine the ore under my people’s village, he came with guns, because nobody needs to pretend to make deals with us anymore. They can just get right to the point.” Axca took a step forward. Even though her arm was fully extended, it showed not the slightest sign of trembling. “He rounded us up. Pointed a gun at our elder’s forehead. And our elder said, “let us through. Let us go, we will find a new home, just let us go. _Let us through_.” And Zarkon laughed.

“He destroyed everything and took me as a prize. He gave me to his son to train me, because Zarkon wanted to test Lotor and see if he had the strength to control me, and because he found the irony _funny_. Zarkon and the Galra took everything from me. And you,” Axca brandished the revolver at Keith. “Are a part of that. So tell me again why I should let you through, when your people did not do the same for mine. Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you.”

Lance was halfway through composing a witty retort when Keith cut him off.

“I can’t.” Keith’s fingers slipped through Lance’s, his eyes never dropping Axca’s. “I know what I am, what I was a part of, and I spend every day trying to fix it. That’s why I defected. But if you want to kill me for what the Galra did, you have that right.”

Why the fuck did he always have to pull this kind of shit? “Keith—”

“No, Lance.” Keith glanced back at him. “She deserves this from me.”

They both looked at Axca. Her mask was slipping; wetness was building in her eyes, but she remained poised, back straight. She took a smooth breath through her nose. And Lance had shot enough guns to know that it was exactly the breath you took before you pulled the trigger.

One second trickled past.

The world was ending behind them.

Two.

Yeah, they really didn’t have much time here.

Three.

Axca’s gun lowered in a smooth arc.

She shook her head. “Go. Find Zarkon. Kill him.”

“What about you?” Lance was surprised to find himself talking. But this girl was him, wasn’t she? She was Allura, and Shay, and everyone else whose life Zarkon had taken.

Axca looked at him for the first time. She said, very calmly, “I’m going back there to Lotor. And then, if that woman hasn’t done it already, I’m going to shoot him between the eyes.”

Without wasting another moment, she shoved her revolver into its holster and sprinted off back the way they had came, back into the dark hole of shifting deadly rock and the echoing sounds of gunfire and monstrous bellowing.

With the immediate danger of dying out of the way, Lance allowed the molten liquid that had been dammed up outside his heart to start seeping in. And with it, and awful realization:

He couldn’t do this anymore.

“Alright, let’s get out of here...Lance? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He clenched his jaw so tight it hurt his teeth, but Lance welcomed the pain. He was so mad it almost hurt.

“If it’s about what just—”

“Look, I get you’re broken up about Coran. But just, you want to go around trying to throw your life away? Fine. But don’t act like you’re the only one who cares if you do. Because you’re not. At least, you weren’t.” Lance brushed past Keith, purposefully hitting his shoulder into Keith’s chest. What was one more thing to be mad at Keith for on top of an already endless list? Fine. Whatever. If Keith wanted to atone for some convoluted sin he thought he carried so badly, let him. Because now it was all coming back. How mad he was at Keith. How deep the despair he had felt during the healing ceremony went. How naked he felt, like a dirty rag that Keith had used up and thrown away.

But he couldn’t get away so easily. Keith grabbed hold of Lance’s hand, spinning him around.

“We’re really gonna do this here?” Lance gestured to the collapsing cavern.

“Yeah, we really are. What do you mean by, ‘weren’t’?”

Lance turned on him. “I saw _inside your head_ , Keith _,_ and you _used_ me. You lied to me about our ransom plan. Then you promised you wouldn’t run off with Allura, and you lied. You keep trying to die. You don’t care about living. But don’t you care about _me?_ ” His voice broke, along with the rest of him. “All this time. I saw it. I felt it. I was a tool to you and I let you lie over and over and over again. How can I know what was real? How can I ever trust you again?

“And if you ever did love me, it only came after you decided to use me. But I doubt that, because obviously you don’t even give that much of a shit about sticking around for me. Nah, you’re way too selfish for that. You’d throw your life away to anyone with a sob story about the Galra and a gun. So how about me? Here’s a story for you: I fell in love with a boy. I knew he was Galra, but I fell in love anyway because frankly I wasn’t consulted in the matter. I thought he was different than the others. But I was wrong. Turns out he doesn’t care about anyone either.” Lance knew what the next words would do, yet he said them anyway, and watched them obliterate Keith’s walls.

“You’re just like the rest of them”

After the adrenaline of battle had abated, he felt again that awful, icy barren nothing in his heart, in the place that used to hold such warmth for Keith. Where had that golden morning in Chicago gone? Had it ever really happened?

“What are you saying?” Keith’s voice was a low whisper. He looked, in that moment, small. Defenseless. Spent. At the end of what he said next, his voice broke like a child’s. “Are you—Lance, are you breaking up with me?”

Just the words were agony. Lance wanted, _fuck_ , how he wanted to fight back against this feeling with every memory of him and Keith together that he had, but now he couldn’t trust them. Any of them. They were all tainted and would forever be tainted by that one insidious thought: how much was a lie?

He searched his heart for weapons, weapons to fight for his love...

 

_Again he scraped his chin on Keith’s face. Keith moaned, his eyes fluttering in time with Lance’s heart. Wow, was this man beautiful. Black hair splayed in a dark halo on the pillow, framing a cut and angular jawline, delicate cheekbones, and smooth skin._

 

...and found nothing. Nothing at all.

“Yeah,” Lance said. A long, long breath poured out of his lungs. “Yeah, I’m breaking up with you.”

 

_He opened Lance’s hand and let the golden chain unspool into his palm, followed by the watch itself. Without saying a word, Keith closed Lance’s fingers. His eyes burned with a fearful, determined, loving intensity._

 

He couldn’t look at Keith. Instead, he reached into his pocket and came up with the golden watch. Trembling, Lance dumped it into Keith’s hand, feeling the full force of his heart breaking along with it. Because this was it: the Balmera’s grotto was collapsing, folding in on itself, destroyed by its own heart. Chunks of rock and crystal fell from the sky and the world was ending, it was all ending and it _hurt_.

 

_Keith kissed his fingers where they clutched the watch. “It’s time for you to go. You can give that back when we meet again.”_

 

Then he turned, and began climbing the stone steps back towards the surface. If he looked back, he might be able to say something, to salvage the two of them, to ruin this trip out of the underworld. But he didn’t. Lance didn’t look back, only up through the tears that were flowing freely down his face. They climbed in silence. And despite how much was left to do before the game was up, there was only one thought in Lance’s head.

_It’s over._

_It’s over._

_It’s just...over._

Each echoing step on the stairway was a nail in their coffin, a death knell, the final heartbeats of a dying creature. Lance was suddenly struck with a vision of the subterranean ocean, the glittering, glowing blue-green water, waves washing on a shore that by now most likely no longer existed thanks to Shay bringing down the cavern. He tried to summon the serenity of the water. But it was gone, the water drained away through the fissures, leaving only barren rock in its absence. Whatever had lived in it was probably dead now along with Shay, and Axca and Allura. So many. Lance was a survivor; he lived through what others didn’t, he was used to seeing his friends die. But right now it was too much.

 

_Lance flashed the watch, catching a bit of sunlight off the gold. “I won’t be late; watch for me. On the horizon.”_

 

From behind him, he could hear the watch ticking in Keith’s hand.

_Tick, tock._

_Tick, tock._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and by enjoy, I meant enjoy crying because of your broken hearts. Sorry.


	6. Endgame

Lance had forgotten just how _good_ whiskey tasted.

He swirled the burning drink around in his mouth for an excruciating and delicious moment before swallowing.

A quick glance over the top of his glass. Keith was sitting like an angry cat, arms folded and knees drawn up to his chin, staring out the window of their lavious train car. Zarkon may have been a bloodthirsty, uncaring businessman, but he also knew how to treat his guests: from the moment Lance and Keith had arrived at the train station they had been ushered into a plush train car lined with velvet and dripping with jewels and alcohol treated with the utmost respect

“Want any whiskey?”

Keith grunted and kept staring out the window. Lance frowned. “What? You can at least enjoy what we have while we have it.”

“And pretend we’re not in a fancy prison cell? No thanks.”

“You’re the one who wanted to be here.”

“Yeah, to save _you._ We trade me for your antidote, remember? _”_

“Something like that.” Of course it was only a show for the Galra listening; Lance’s real plan was very different than what Zarkon had outlined. Well, perhaps calling it a “plan” was a little generous. It was more like an outline. The bomb was a nice little bargaining chip, meant to save their asses.

“Something like that,” Keith echoed. An uncomfortable silence wrapped itself around them.

“Another,” Lance told the Galra guard standing at the door, gesturing at his empty glass. She frowned at him, but left the car all the same. Now they were alone.

“Look, Lance. I...I still stand by my reason for running off with Allura. I still think we owe it to her to try and save her people. They’re all innocent. Whatever Zarkon’s planning, they don’t deserve to have their town destroyed. And—”

“Yeah. Okay. I get it.”

Lance fell into a stony silence, ignoring the frustration on Keith’s face. Memories were blurring in his head, of a sunset of brilliant orange. Of a beautiful lie told to him in a cave when he thought everything was going to be alright. He had already had this argument with Keith. He wasn’t sure he could go through it again. Both because he was exhausted, and because he had a prickling idea that he wasn’t the same person he had been. When he looked at Keith, a twinge of regret raced down Lance’s throat before he could cut it off, and if he stared too long at the way the light played across Keith’s face he would be lost.

Before leaving for the station they had changed again in Allura’s house, and now Lance couldn’t stop himself from admiring the fit of Keith’s shirt and pants. But even admiring hurt, because of both the person who wore the clothes and the person they had come from.

They had held a small ceremony for Allura. After changing, Keith found some candles and matches and put them up around a photo of her. Setting her beside her father’s photo on his shrine on her desk, Lance had experienced an unexpected surge of emotion and tried to give it all to Allura.

“Even though you tried to kill me, like, twice,” he said, gently laying the faded paper down next to the handsome face of who could only be Alfor, “you also saved me. And us.”

Keith lit a candle. “You were a warrior, the best protector your town could have asked for. And we’ll fight Zarkon for what you and your father believed in.” Then he set down a photo of Coran that had been hanging in the foyer. “Everything you did, you did for Allura. You took me in, taught me to fight, how to stand up to Zarkon. You were one of the bravest men I’ve ever known. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, but neither of your deaths will be in vain. I promise.”

Lance thought about how his plan would most likely end in disastrous failure, that it was designed to save their own asses and not Altea, but he didn’t say any of that. Instead he found himself laying a hand on Allura’s photograph.

“I promise too,” he said, and was surprised to find he meant it. “I only fight for myself, but you were different. I don’t know if I can ever live up to that, but...but I can respect it. So I’ll do my best. For you.”

But even though the words were nice, Lance wasn’t sure. His number one priority was to get him and his crew out of this whole mess with the skin on their backs intact. As he had told Allura in this same room earlier that day, he didn’t know if he could stop Zarkon, especially now that they knew he had some other plan in the works that involved the Balmera. Lotor had mentioned it himself: _Father’s plan_. But what did Zarkon want with a half-dead Balmera? Why would he ever want to deal with one again after it had destroyed his life?

He and Keith had discussed it on their long ride from Altea to the station that would take them right back the way they came (Lance on Blue, Keith atop a horse borrowed from Allura’s stables), but neither had been able to come up with an answer. It just didn’t make any sense to agitate the Balmera and destroy both the crystals it had grown and their source, especially if the crystals were what Zarkon was so greedy for. Also, talking to each other was just sort of impossible at the moment. Right now Lance wanted space, to be on some wide grassy field far away from Keith and the whole fucked up tangle of pain he brought with him.

The knife wound on his stomach throbbed. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Lance drew up the hem of his shirt. He frowned. The purple spiderweb veins had receded, and the wound itself had scabbed over a little, but the Balmera hadn’t been able to banish it completely. If Lance had to guess he would say the Balmera had just bought him a few more hours. _Hopefully that’s all I’ll need_ , he thought.

A raised hair on the back of his neck: he looked up and caught Keith red-handed.

“What?”

Keith blushed furiously. “Nothing. It’s just—that still doesn’t look good.”

“Yeah. Being shanked by a poisoned knife tends to do that to a person.” Lance hated how bitter and whiny his voice was, like when they had first met. But he couldn’t help it; all he could see when he looked at Keith now was betrayal.

Lance had his hand in his pocket to reach for the watch before he remembered it wasn’t there. Fuck. Why did this have to suck so much?

He wanted to know how Pidge and Hunk had done. Had they completed their part of the plan? Lance had to trust them. His scheme depended on it. _Get the antidote and get everyone out of here safely._ There was an awful sinking feeling in his gut that Lance suspected came from putting so many of his friends in danger. Since when had that been a thing? In the past he had shoved Pidge and Hunk in front of much worse than a moving train to pull off this heist or that robbery had never given much of a shit, or at least, had told himself so. But now...now he was worried about them. All of them. So much of this rested on his shoulders, and he didn’t know if he could see it all through.

_But I have to_ , Lance thought. There just wasn’t any other choice. He was about to say something when Keith cut him off, a strange hint of urgency in his voice.

"You realize what this is, don't you?"

"What what is?"

Keith gestured to the table. "Us. This train. All of it. It’s Zarkon’s endgame.”

The word hung uneasily in the air, its implications going unspoken. They didn’t need a voice to put the taste of fear in the back of Lance’s throat.

“What I’m trying to say,” Keith looked visibly pained. “Is that I still think there’s this right thing to do. But also...I don’t want to do it alone. Not if it means losing yo—”

The door to their train car opened, bringing with it the howling air of the Texas scrublands and the same guard. Only instead of carrying a tray of whiskey, she pointed a pistol at Keith and Lance.

“Zarkon will see you now,” she said. Were her teeth sharpened? Surely Lance hadn’t had _that_ much to drink.

The guard raised a pair of dangling handcuffs and grinned. Lance sighed. He was well acquainted with these little contraptions. There was probably a permanent red band around his wrist from the amount of times he had been cuffed in his short but dashingly handsome life.

“Now, will you put these on or shall I?”

 

**

 

Being brought before the man who had killed his entire family was somewhat less dramatic than Lance had imagined.

Maybe it was because he had only recently begun to lift the myriad of mental blocks he had placed around any and all memories of his childhood, but still. Surely there should have been some sweeping epic score to accompany this moment. At the very least, some sizzling tension between them.

Instead, he and Keith were brought into an even nicer car next to their own, and it was exquisite; carved wood panelling so dark it was nearly black, a long dining table decked out with all manner of candles and silverware (Lance managed to pick up an expensive-looking spoon and slip it into his back pocket when nobody was looking) plus a gorgeous-looking feast of roast chicken, grapes, vegetables, candied potatoes, and at least three different kinds of wine.

And sitting at the head of the table was the same gigantic, muscle-strapped man who had shoved Lance’s face in the sand a few days prior. He was sitting politely while food was dished out onto his plate.

“Ah, Lance McClain. Keith Kogane-Shirogane. So nice of the both of you to join me. Please, someone, take off those ridiculous shackles. How are they supposed to eat with their hands bound?”

“Apologies, sir.” The guard bowed deeply and undid their cuffs. Lance flexed his fingers. They hadn’t actually begun to ache yet, but better to let Zarkon believe that his hands had lost some of their dexterity. It might give him an edge.

Zarkon motioned to two pulled out chairs on either side of his own, situated at the head of the table. “Please, sit.”

Lance exchanged a silent look with Keith. But before they could decide anything, Zarkon’s voice reverberated through the car.

“I said, _sit_.”

They sat.

“Very good. Now, our business here today is straightforward.” Zarkon began to cut into a slab of chicken on his gold-rimmed china plate. “You and that girl Allura stole something of mine.” He gestured to Keith with a fork. “And since you have so politely returned him to me, I have something you might be interested in.” His fork moved to tap a small glass vial sitting beside his wine cup. The sound shimmered in the heavy air between them. “This is the antidote to your wound. As promised.”

Lance gave it a longing look. The knife wound, not yet even close to healing on his stomach, was really beginning to give him uncomfortably painful cramps, kicking in even sooner after the Balmera’s healing than when he had first been cut. But he knew the cost of that antidote. If Zarkon got his hands on Keith, he would torture him for information on the Blades, just as he had warned Allura about, and Lance wouldn’t let that happen, Keith’s extreme asshole-ness notwithstanding.

_Trust in the plan._

“You got it, buckaroo,” Lance said, flashing Zarkon his most winning smile. “One rogue Galra employee for one antidote to your blackmail. Fair and square.”

Zarkon gave him a long and trying look over the rim of his wine glass.

“Quite.” He swallowed, and then waved his hand in the air. An attendant materialized from the shadows in the corners of the car, picked up the vial, and placed it on front of Lance without much fanfare. Then she plucked the handcuffs from the table, jerked Keith’s hands into the air, and clamped them down over his wrists.

“Hey!” Keith tried to jerk away but was too late. “What the hell?”

Lance ignored Keith; the handcuffs were unfortunate to their ruse, but also not entirely unplanned for. He had anticipated Zarkon pulling some kind of bait and switch. In fact, Lance might have been a little insulted if he hadn’t.

So, he held Zarkon’s gaze, leaning back in his chair and cupping his hands behind his head. Cool as a cactus.

“Yeah, about that deal.” Lance pretended to yawn. Picked his teeth with the fanciest fork in front of him. “I’ve been giving it some thought. And you know what? I just can’t for the life of me--pardon my pun--figure out what I gain from this. My life, yeah, but that’s only because you blackmailed me. It’s like I end up right back at square one. No money, no nothing. So.” Lance leaned forward, smacking his chair back onto the floor with a resounding _crack._

“While in Altea, I did some research on your company. Allura had all kinds of dirt on you. And it seems like this track is the only rail line you have leading anywhere close to Altea.”

Zarkon seemed to be growing less and less impressed. Lance hurried along.

“Since it’s the only one you have, it would be such a shame if anything were to happen to that track and all the valuable mining equipment on this train. And you seem awfully impatient to get to Altea. So. How about a new deal? You give me Keith back, and I’ll maybe consider thinking about _not_ blowing this rodeo to kingdom come.”

Lance smirked and planted his feet on the table, crisscrossed for optimum comfort. This was his moment of triumph. This was his ace in the hole: with the bomb Pidge and Hunk had planted, ready to blow, there was no way Zarkon would give up his line to Altea for an insubstantial lead on the Blades. He glanced underneath the table, to where Pidge had marked the spot with a little red _X_ in chalk. All he had to do was stand far enough away, aim carefully, and _boom._ One homemade ace in the hole, served right up.

Zarkon’s face was impassive. A long, long breath escaped from his nose.

“You are attempting to bargain with me? _Me?_ ” A long, slow chuckle rumbled from his throat.

Lance’s smirk began to melt. Why was Zarkon chuckling? He shouldn’t be chuckling. Chuckling was not a good sign for someone who was checkmated.

Zarkon rose from his seat and went to stand by a window, hands clasped behind his back. Out beyond the confines of their train, the desert scrublands sped past in a dizzying blur of brown and beige. So much freedom just beyond his reach. But Lance had been bathing in that freedom for the last decade and a half, and look what that had brought him.

“You don’t understand me, boy.” Zarkon turned, and, snake-like, grabbed Keith by the neck, which Lance was beginning to recognize as a staple of this guy’s anger-coping mechanisms. “How can you possibly hope to outmaneuver an opponent you don’t understand?”

Lance’s heart thundered in his chest. Keith’s face was slowly turning an agonizing shade of purple, his eyes bulging.

“I had a family once. I loved my wife, and I loved a man named Alfor. He was very nearly my brother. You’ve met his daughter. A charming little savage, as I’m sure you’ve found out.”

“She’s dead,” Lance spit, unable to stop himself.

Zarkon released his hold on Keith and strode back to the window, his unreadable face reflected in the glass. “Then Alfor’s line is ended.”

“And your own, asshole. Allura killed your son.” Whether or not this was true, Lance wasn’t technically sure. But there was no way Allura had allowed herself to die without taking Coran’s murderer with her, especially with the help of Shay and a horde of savage little Balmera Juniors.

Zarkon jerked his head up. Paused for a beat. Then, “Good.”

“ _Good?_ ”

“This man, Alfor. I trusted him, and he betrayed me. He raised a beast to destroy my family in his jealousy of my power. And now, thanks to my son’s sacrifice, I will do the same to destroy Alfor’s legacy. It is a shame his daughter will not suffer with the rest Altea.”

All at once, the horrible pieces of Zarkon’s puzzle fit together.

“You’re raising the Balmera,” Lance breathed, the last of his former bravado washed down the drain. “That’s why the cavern was collapsing; it’s waking up. You’re going to unleash it on Altea. And that’s...that’s why you sent Lotor. To piss it off.”

“A crude way of phrasing it, but yes. With bloodshed the Balmera will be brought from its peaceful slumber. I knew the violence Lotor would enact while delivering my message would be suitable for waking the beast. You’ve just confirmed my theory.”

“You sent your own son to die.”

“I sent my son to avenge his _mother_ ,” Zarkon snarled. He turned on Lance like a wildcat and punched his fist into the table, scattering china dishes everywhere. “And his grandparents, and his siblings. His home. Alfor took everything from me. _Everything._ And now I will ride into Altea, and I will watch it be reduced to rubble, just as my home was. And when it is over, when every last one of Alfor’s citizens is dead, I will use the creature to destroy all others who oppose in my path. That is my purpose. That is what you stand in the way of. You cannot imagine my grief, Ghost of the West. So do not try to interfere with—” He gripped a sculpted glass cup and hurled it against a wall. “—with childish _threats._ With _bombs._ I am above such play.”

With practiced ease Zarkon drew from a sheath on his hip a gleaming silver knife. “You have been a thorn in my side for far too long. I gave you more chances than you deserved, and you threw them back in my face. You brought this fate down on yourself.”

Then, with focused fury, Zarkon plunged the knife into Keith’s shoulder.

“ _NO!_ ”

Lance lunged forward, only to be caught by two Galra guards. They slammed him back into his seat and held him there, forcing him to watch the blood seep from Keith’s skin, from the knife that stood quivering out of his muscle like a damning finger from heaven. Already he could see purple veins spreading like disease. _No. No, no,_ this could not be happening, not to them, not now.

“But what about finding the Blades? You need Keith! And the bomb?” Lance gasped, struggling against the iron-like grip of the guards. Nothing made sense; everything was devolving into a chaotic mess. “What about this train?”

Zarkon plucked the knife from Keith’s body and twirled it between his fingers. Flecks of blood went flying in all directions. “Yes, the bomb...did I forget to inform you? I found some stowaways you might be interested in.”

He jerked his chin at the guards standing outside of the car. They in turn beckoned to somebody out of Lance’s sight. There was movement in the next car up. Then:

“Oh, god.”

Once again their car door was opened, and in was marched, bound and gagged, Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge.

“ _Shiro!_ ” Keith tried to rise from his seat, but Zarkon shoved him down. Without the use of his hands, Keith went sprawling across the table, scattering food and dishes and wine everywhere.

While Keith was busy freaking out, Lance read the silent looks on his companion’s faces: Pidge and Hunk were bruised and bloody, but the gleam in their eyes said, _they haven’t found it._

The game was still on.

“Well, it seems we have a family reunion.” Zarkon “How touching.”

Keith picked himself up from the table, mashed potatoes dribbling down his cheek suit coat. “Let him go. All of them.”

“Come, even you must recognize the futility of that argument,” Zarkon said. Lance was very aware of guards slowly advancing towards them, drawing tighter the circle of mobility. “What I’ll do instead is torture the children until they reveal the location of their bomb. And then I shall separate your brother’s fingers from his hand until he gives me names. Lists upon lists of conspirators in your little society. And since I have him, you have become totally dispensable. Honerva was curious to see what the effects of her poison would be on a perfectly healthy individual.” Zarkon shrugged. “Suffice to say I indulged in her experiment.”

But what could Lance do? He had no plan for this, no other ace in the hole. It was his worst nightmare come to life all over again, just like the last time he had gone up against Zarkon. Some kind of grand Ghost of the West he was. There weren’t even any weapons left on his person to--

 

_“Here,” Zarkon dropped a small but heavy object on Lance’s stomach. “In case you fail me. Never let it be said that Zarkon was not a merciful man.”_

 

Wait a second.

When Keith and Lance had boarded the train they had been searched. But when the guards had found it, Lance had laughed in their faces.

_“Go ahead, take the present Zarkon gavet to me. See how well he likes that.” Lance had grinned wolfishly. “I’m sure he’ll be very forgiving when he discovers you took my invitation aboard this train.” The guards had exchanged glances and paled. He had shown them the gun, the empty chambers, all the while rolling a bullet around under his tongue._

 

_A small, unremarkable pistol._

 

“Hey! I don’t mean interrupt your evil monologuing here, but I have to tell you something.” Lance drew himself up to his full height, which was sort of close to Zarkon’s if you squinted.

“And what,” Zarkon snarled, eyes narrowing down to slits. “Is that?”

 

_Lance knew with terrible certainty that it was loaded with exactly one bullet._

 

The wound in his belly wrenched as if something was trying to tear its way out. Lance ignored it. Instead, he drew the pistol Zarkon had given him from his jacket, flicked open the barrel, spat the bullet into its chamber, and pointed the damn gun the way his mama had taught him.

 

_I’m not dead yet, asshole._

 

“Now,” Lance said, smiling grimly, “you will know pain.”

Getting to throw words back in someone’s face like that was a once-a-lifetime sort of thing, but Lance’s pleasure was cut short when the train was jostled by a heavy something, just as his finger squeezed the trigger.

The shot went way off target, landing somewhere around Zarkon’s stomach instead of his shriveled lump of a heart.

He didn’t scream, which was weird, but went down in a writhing mass of pain. Lance didn’t waste a second. Pivoting, he pistol whipped the guard sneaking up behind him, then chucked the useless hunk of metal. It connected with another charging guard’s forehead with a satisfying thunk, and the man went down like a corpse.

Lance leapt across the table and tore off Pidge and Hunk’s mouth gags.

“Are you two ok?”

“Yes! Now undo my hands, stupid!”

“Nice to see you too, Pidge.”

It took a few seconds of rooting around the knocked out guard’s body to find a knife, which made short work of the rope around all three captive’s hands. After a lengthy minute of hurried searching, Shiro found the key to Keith’s cuff’s in the other woman’s pocket. Sadly, however, the two guards only had one revolver between them, and it was out of bullets. Lance stuffed the handcuffs into one of his jacket pockets. Hunk always scolded him for his hoarding tendencies, but Lance preferred to think of it more as “one never knows what will be useful down the line”.

Lance watched Keith and Shiro embrace. Shiro’s massive arms squeezed Keith so hard he might burst like Lance’s belly wanted to.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Shiro said, ruffling Keith’s hair.

Keith smiled and Lance had to look away. It hurt more than he expected. “Well, mostly. This poison thing’s new.”

“Yeah, um about that,” Lance interjected. He held out the bottle of antidote. “Here. Take it.”

Keith jumped away as if burned. “What? No way, man. You need it way more than I do. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not. You’re here because of me.” Lance shook the vial. “I’m not letting you die. I’m just...not.”

Wait, were these words really coming out of his mouth? What the hell had happened to ‘survive at all costs’ Ghost of the West?

Keith looked at him funny. “Lance—”

“Oh my God, do you guys know how in love you are?” Pidge popped her head up from where she was busy looting the guards for weaponry. “Look, I saw that witch lady who makes the antidote board the train earlier. If we can track her down, maybe she’ll have more. And then neither of you have to die.”  
“Good plan, Pidge.” Shiro nodded. “Let’s get moving. We don’t want to be here when Zarkon comes around.”

Hunk raised his hand. “Uh...guys? Where _is_ Zarkon?”

They all whirled around to look at the spot where Zarkon had been just moments ago, but all that was left was a small puddle of blood on the floor. Dammit. Lance could kick himself. They had all been so preoccupied in each other that they have let him get away. Lance _did_ notice a small trail of blood leading towards the front of the train; at least they knew what direction he had gone in.

“We can’t spend time worrying about him,” Shiro said grimly. “Pidge, Hunk, where is Haggar?”

“Dude, I don’t know! I thought she would be in here!”

Lance’s vision swam. _Blue crystals, soothing him in the bloody dark._

He felt...something. Tugging at him.

 

_You now carry some of the energy of the Balmera within you, as I sense you somehow have in the past. It is a blessing from a dying god; protect it._

 

His eyes flew open.

“Haggar’s using a Balmera crystal. I can feel it.”

“A what? And feel huh now?” Hunk raised an eyebrow at him. “You okay, buddy?”

Lance waved him off. “No time to explain. Follow me.”

Not that he was sure he could explain. It was some sort of feeling, but less than that. Like a tingly something at the edge of the peripheral vision of his mind’s eye. Shay had told him he was connected to the Balmera now. Did that mean Lance was some sort of Balmera crystal tracker?

Hopefully. Otherwise he was just gonna get them all killed. Which would actually seem pretty par on course for how this week was going.

“Lance. So you’re the Ghost of the West.” Shiro caught him just before he was about to move, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder. His gaze felt heavy with responsibility. Already Lance could tell he was somebody he wanted to impress. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.” _Uh, sorry I broke up with your brother. And got him stabbed._

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Not really,” Lance swallowed. “But it’s the best shot we have.”

Shiro sighed. He seemed to search Lance’s eyes for something, and Lance couldn’t say whether or not he found it. “Okay,” Shiro said, after the longest second Lance had ever lived through. “Lead the way.”

Without further ado, Lance lead them out into the clawing wind, making sure nobody could see his face as they went out; he knew it was the face of a liar. Because yeah, maybe Haggar would have more antidote on her. But maybe she wouldn’t. And besides, Lance had already seen up close what a dangerous woman she could be, and he had absolutely no intention of leading all his friends into that sort of situation, not where more of them could get poisoned by who knew what else the crazy old hag had laying around. No, if Lance was going after Haggar, he was doing it alone, which was going to require a little bit of finessing. He couldn’t just shove them all off the train; they were moving too fast to be safe.

Maybe…

He smiled to himself. A tiny idea was brewing in the back of his head, where he left it to simmer. All he needed as more time.

Outside, everybody was waiting for Lance to make a move. He took a breath and grinned.

“Alright, who’s ready for a witch hunt? We’re going over the tops of the cars, quiet-like, so nobody sees or hears us. Got it?”

“This way!” Lance shouted, and started to climb the ladder leading to the top of the car. Each jostle of the train felt like a great beast trying to shake him off. Still, none of them compared to the one that had sent his bullet askew earlier. What the hell had that been?

Whatever it was, there wasn’t any time to think about it. Lance had to focus on pulling the rest of the entourage up onto the top of the train car, ignoring the now searing pain in his abdomen, trying not to get swept off by the the roof by the relentless and scorching wind. The world was wide open around them. Punctuated only with staccato red formations of sandstone, Texas spread out in all directions like a great yawning void, ready to swallow them whole if there was just one misstep, one slip in the wrong direction. Taking a look around, he saw an unusual combination of passenger and cargo cars. Who the heck had loaded this train? If Zarkon was hot stepping it to Altea with his mining crap in tow, what need did he have of empty passenger carriers?

He also wasn’t seeing a simple way out; Lance thought he had a pretty good idea now of how to get everyone off the train semi-safely, but it was still going to require time and a bit of finagling. Why couldn’t something just be easy?

Something in his abdomen wrenched. The crystals. Haggar...Honerva...whoever she was, was close. Too close.

Lance put one hand down on the train car roof to stabilize himself, then turned back to face Keith and the rest.

“Guys,” he started, but was cut off by Pidge’s scream.

“ _Pidge!_ ” Keith and Lance rose simultaneously, along with Shiro and Hunk, only to discover Pidge being held several feet in the hair by a clawed hand in her hair.

Haggar’s teeth flashed like a shark’s. “Going somewhere?” Somehow, her scratchy old voice cut straight through the tearing wind. There was no way someone of her age should be able to lift an eighteen year old girl, yet somehow, impossibly, Haggar was doing just that. “I would tell you to lay down your weapons, but none of you have any. How unfortunate.”

“Let her go!” Lance stepped forward, past Keith and Shiro. He put a hand on Hunk’s shoulder to stabilize himself. It probably wouldn’t look very intimidating if he passed out now. “She hasn’t done anything to you.”

Haggar cocked her head. “Is that so? I suppose I must have dreamt that trainyard exploding, then.”

“Pidge, you blew up the entire trainyard?”  
“Hunk helped, okay? And I don’t think that’s what we should be focusing on this exact second!”

Keith’s body was tensed so tight Lance could practically feel it from where he stood. “Then what do you want? Tell me or I’ll slit your throat.”

“How macabre of you.” Haggar’s robes and long silver hair were flapping furiously in the gale, and all Lance could think was how, despite all his best intentions, they were once again fucked. He hadn’t actually intended to run into Haggar, for pretty much this exact reason: somebody was going to get hurt, and it was all his fault. Part of him wanted to curl up and cry and have this ordeal just go away.

But that wasn’t how life worked.

Haggar drew from the depths of her robes a small, lumpy object. Something inside Lance sank. It was Pidge and Hunk’s homemade bomb, the one that was supposed to be hidden on the underside of the train. How Haggar had managed to get her crusty old hands on it, Lance had no idea. But it was too late to worry about that now.

“Tell me the names of the leaders of the Blades of Montana,” Haggar growled, “or I strap this bomb to your little pyromaniac here and see how fireproof she is.”

“What were you doing with the Balmera crystals just now?” Keith shot back.

Haggar chuckled. “None of your concern. But if you must know, I was completing the Balmera summons. Giving it a little...direction, so to speak. We can’t have a beast running rampant on its own. But now Altea’s destruction is ensured, and the beast’s loyalty to Zarkon absolute. My work here is complete.”

“So it’s done, then.”

“And as long as that Balmera is deprived of the soothing flow of its river, Altea will burn tonight. Now,” Haggar said. “The names. Give them to me, one of you.” Maybe Lance was imagining it, but it seemed, for the briefest instant, that her eyes flashed purple. “And I will know if you’re lying.”

He saw Keith and Shiro trade an uneasy glance. They didn’t know what to do. If they gave up Blade names, people would die. And if they didn’t, Pidge and most likely the rest of them would bite it as well.

“Shiro! Don’t do it!” Pidge squirmed in Haggar’s grasp to no effect.

Shiro sighed, his breath that of a defeated soldier. He raked a hand through his hair. “My name is Takashi Kogane-Shirogane,” he said. “Manager of the Strategy Division within the Galra Empire and...and Admiral of the Blades of Montana.”

“And my name is Keith Kogane-Shirogane, and I’m—”

Shiro clamped a hand down on Keith’s shoulder. “My little brother. Nothing more.” The look he gave Keith left no room for argument. This was it. This was the end of any sort of resistance to the Galra. For so much of his life Lance hadn’t cared about the Galra Mining Company, but he had come to realize that like it or not, his past and future were intertwined with that corporation’s. They were responsible for so much evil, so much hurt, so much murder. But any fight against the Galra he fostered within his heart would have to end here and now, because he couldn’t take the Galra on alone. Not without the Blades. And looking at Keith’s face, Lance felt the apocalypse of his hope. The Blades were everything Keith and Shiro had ever worked for.

Haggar’s snake-like eyes flicked between Shiro and Keith.

“You’re lying,” she hissed. “You. Keith.” Her lips curled. “I know all about your plans; I have seen your heart in the crystals. Using your boyfriend to further your own interests? You could be a true Galra with that kind of cunning.”

“Shut up!” Keith roared, surging forward only to be caught by Shiro’s massive arm. For his part, Lance felt numb. As if knives were plunging into his chest but his nerves refused to react.

“You seem like a smart boy, so I’ll make you a deal.” Haggar’s slits for eyes slid up and down Lance’s body. “Hand over the Ghost of the West, and your friend here goes free. I’ll even give your brother a head start before I hunt him down. You can save your friends, Keith. You can save all those lives by just using this scum one more time. That’s how people like you and I get by in the world; using others. Manipulating them. They are puppets but _we_ , we are the masters.”

With her free hand, Haggar reached within the folds of her robes and tossed Keith a knife.

“Incapacitate him. Do it now.”

“But why…” he was stalling. “Why Lance?”

“Because the Ghost seems to have a valuable connection to the Balmera beast. That, and it will bring me great joy to rip out such a thorn in the Galra’s side. Now stop wasting time and make your choice.”

Keith looked down at the knife, turning it over and over in his hand. Words choked in Lance’s throat. The entire Blades of Montana organization and Pidge versus Lance’s life. It wasn’t even a contest. And he knew Keith was capable of betting Lance’s soul.

He had been doing it for weeks.

Arm raising like a guillotine, Keith leveled the blade at Lance. His body was frozen. Gripped by some invisible and godlike hand.

The regarded each other. Lance studied Keith’s expression, his stance, the twitch in his mouth.

“No,” Keith said, and changed his aim so it was Haggar staring the knife point. Lance had seen Keith throw a knife once before and knew that at this range, he wouldn’t miss. Haggar was surely smart enough to recognize the same. “No, I’m done using him. I’ll pay the price. But Pidge won’t. Let her go.”

Lance jerked his head around, not sure he heard that right.

He couldn’t believe it. One part of him was incredulous that Keith would bet all their lives on protecting Lance, and the other was exuberant. He felt a shroud lift from his heart.

_I’ve been an idiot._ The realization slapped him across the face like a wriggling fish. Because this was Keith, and it had always been Keith;

 

_“He risked himself.” The fire crackled under Allura’s voice, throwing long shadows over her face. “I arrived after the explosion, and I thought you were just a Galra guardsman escorting him away from the fight. But then Keith put a gun to his own throat. He told me I was to take the both of you, or none of you.”_

 

How could Lance have forgotten? Well, he hadn’t forgotten, per say, but more thought that Keith had simply been putting on a performance. But he hadn’t. It had been real, and this was real, and Keith, everything about him, was real. He had used Lance, but he also loved Lance. And here, now, he would not give Lance up and that meant his heart was real. _Real_. And that was what mattered.

Even though they were all about to die, Lance felt happier than he had in days.

Haggar sneered. “How noble. If only nobility could stop death.”

“It can stop his,” a voice said. “But not yours.”

The tip of a saber erupted from Haggar’s chest.

The old woman wheezed, once, twice, and blood began to dribble out of the corner of her mouth.

Haggar dropped Pidge—who landed nimbly on her feet—and tried to turn, but the sword in her body prevented her. Her eyes darted to and fro wildly, and for a brief moment Lance felt a flash of pity for her, struggling like some animal caught in a trap.

Then the sword was yanked from her chest, and she collapsed to her knees in front of a tall woman whose white hair blew in the wind like an avenging warrior queen, face knotted in anguish.

The saber twisted in Haggar’s heart. “And if it is names you want, than here’s one for you: Princess Allura of Altea.”


	7. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be (and have been lately) updated every Monday instead of Friday from here on out. Thanks for sticking with me!

On top of a speeding train in the middle of the eternal desert, Lance and everyone else stood frozen in shock while a dead woman killed a living one.

Allura stepped in front of Haggar, who was gasping on her knees, and knelt so she was looking in her eyes.

“I am Princess Allura,” she said again, and the furious calm of her face chilled a deep part of Lance. “I am the protector of Altea, guardian of the Balmera, and daughter of King Alfor, the man whose heart was torn from his chest. And you will never harm anyone else, _witch._ ” Recognition bloomed on Haggar’s face. She swayed on her knees.

At a nod from Allura, Hunk rushed forward and searched her, but only moments later he straightened up and shook his head. He had recovered the bomb, but nothing else.

“She doesn’t have any antidote. Not on her, at least.”

“Fine.” Rising, Allura drew black her blade, the metal hovering, glittering in the scorching sun. Then, quieter than a whisper, swifter than a sparrow, the blade flashed once, too quick for Lance’s eye to catch.

Haggar’s head sailed clear off the train. Her body slumped over, but where Lance would have expected a pool of blood, the bloody stump oozed a purple-black liquid as thick as jam. Then the train jostled and the body slid, disappearing over the lip of the train, following its severed head.

Allura closed her eyes, blade clattering to the rooftop. “That was for you, Father.”

Lance stared at her in awe. He couldn’t help but think of the first time he had seen her, when someone could have told him she was a warrior goddess come to earth and he would have believed them. “Allura! You’re...you’re—”

“Alive?” Allura wiped her mouth with the back of a bloody hand. “Fortunately, that is the case, yes.”

Pidge scrambled to her feet, rubbing her hair where Haggar had grabbed it. “I have no idea who you are,” she said, “but that was pretty badass. You straight up killed that lady.”

“No,” Allura shook her head. “Zarkon’s wife Honerva died long ago. Whatever this Haggar was, it was no living being. It was a reanimation. A creature who feasted on dark forces we can only guess at. If Honerva were alive I would have shown more restraint.”

Keith gave Allura an awkward, one-handed hug. “Not to be rude, but, how are you here? We thought you died back in the caverns.”

Allura sighed. She knelt down and picked up her sabre, wiping it on her already grimy canvas pants.

“The Balmera saved me. Or rather, its offspring. When Shay brought down the cavern it crushed Lotor and his lackeys. It would have surely crushed me as well, but one of the cubs came to my rescue. It tunneled me out. I rode it here, and it was kind enough to, ah, give me a little boost aboard the train.”

So _that’s_ what the giant rumble had been that had thrown off Lance’s shot. A teenage monster from below the earth smashing into the train was certainly more believable than him just having bad aim.

“As for Shay, I never saw what became of her. I can’t imagine that the Balmera would let its last guardian die under its own power, but then, those organisms are a mystery, even to me.”

“And Acxa?”

“Who?”

Keith looked at his toes. “Nobody. Forget it. We’re just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, Princess. I never thought I would say this, but I’m happy you’re...”

Lance winced at a particularly strong throb in his stomach. He opened his mouth to try and start the sentence again, but this time, his wound spasmed in what was excruciating pain. Gingerly, he peeled up his shirt to look at his stomach, and found it covered with insidious-looking purple veins, ranging from below his belt all the way up to his breastbone. And in the center, gleaming a sickly sheen of black, was the knife wound. It had grown impossibly festered and decayed in just a few hours, as if it had come back with a vengeance to make up for the Balmera’s healing. The adrenaline of the afternoon must have curbed Lance’s awareness of how bad it had gotten. But it was sure hitting him at full force now.

“Oh,” was all he said. Then pain tore through his mind, and the world was snuffed out.

 **

Lance oscillated between consciousness and nothing, the two planes of reality rapidly tilting just out of his reach. He was vaguely aware of laying in a heap on top of the train, but everything felt wrong and far away and unconnected to his thoughts.

Then: a pair of feet walking towards him. From between his half-opened eyes, all Lance could see was brown ankles and a dress billowing magnificently in the wind. The wind made no sound. His world was too peaceful for that.

“My baby boy.” The feet stopped walking, and knelt down next to Lance. A hand rubbed his back. “My brave, brave baby boy.”

“Mama,” Lance said, and began to cry immediately.

“Shhh, don’t cry.”

Lance didn’t have the strength to sit up. He didn’t even have the energy to turn his face out of the puddle of his own tears. He was pathetic.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

Another presence; his papa. “Oh, Lance,” Papa said. “Those are my words. Not yours.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance said again. “I didn’t do anything. I’ve been avoiding you.”

His mama, hand still resting between his shoulders, laughed softly. “You can’t avoid those who’ve always been with you. Whether or not you noticed, we never left.”

“But you’re not real.” Lance sucked in a laboring breath. “I don’t know if I can keep going.”

Papa sat comfortably beside Lance, legs hanging off the train roof. Just like when they had watched the birds in the sky together. “It is a hard road ahead,” he admitted. “And most likely a short one.”

“I didn’t save you. I had the chance. And I didn’t do anything.” Then, something else occurred to him, something he had always been too wrapped up in his own shame to consider: “You died for me.”

“Yes,” his mama said simply. “Of course we did.”

“Weren’t you afraid?”

  
“To Bloodride? For you?” Papa laughed. “Never. There are people worth dying for, Lance. There are reasons for living, of course. Many of them. But there _are_ reasons for dying.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

A twinkle in his papa’s voice brushed over the bruised pain. “Lance, that was never your duty. It was our job to save you. It was something _we_ chose. You were never meant to save us; you never could have.”

Those words squeezed tears out of his tired eyes, and for the first time, Lance allowed himself to sob. It felt so good, to cry into his Mama’s shirt, to hold her close, to be told he was forgiven. It washed over him like a balm. Soaked into those old hurts and finally began to scab them over.

“But you can still save _them_ , my baby boy.”

The idea took him by surprise. Lance was just about to ask how when it came to him.

“The dam,” he whispered. On their ride to the station, Keith and Lance had crossed a bridge and dam structure, spanning the giant river Zarkon had plugged up.

The river that had fed the Balmera.

And In just a few miles, the train would pass over that dam. And if he could destroy it, he could free the river and maybe, just maybe, calm the Balmera. The Galra would be cut off from Altea by train for at least a few years while they rebuilt the bridge.

And he already had the tools to do it, too: what could blow something up better than a bomb?

Lance dragged his eyes to finally look at his mother’s face, but all he saw was the empty blue sky. Empty except for two birds, wheeling high over his head. His mama’s disembodied voice echoed across the vast blue. “We love you, Lance. With all of our hearts, no matter what you choose, we love you. And so do others. Don’t push them away.”

 

_Zarkon was blinded by his ghosts. All he wants is blood._

 

Lance thought of the ghosts of his mama. Of Papa. He thought of waking up to find Keith gone and only the golden pocket watch in his place. Of the plan to escape the train that had been brewing in the back of his mind.

_What do I want?_

“I love him,” Lance choked out. “I don’t want to go without him knowing.” There was nobody left to hear.

But he knew what he had to do.

 **

“Lance. Lance? _Lance!_ ” Whoever was calling his name was a very long ways away, and underwater. Evidently they didn’t get that memo, because they kept at it. It sounded like Keith. “Lance. You need to wake up. Lance!”

Groaning, Lance flipped over onto his side and tried to peer through the bleary veil over his eyes. The howling wind had stopped, and he was aware of the plush feel of carpet on his skin, and of Keith’s face so close to his own. For one single second, Lance thought he was back in Chicago. In that golden hotel room. With the best person he had ever met. For one single second, Lance wanted to keep crying, because it felt like everyone around him was already ghosts.

But he wasn’t in Chicago; they were back inside the train car where they had treated with Zarkon before everything went to shit.

“Lance!”

“S’okay,” Lance mumbled.

“You’re alive. He’s alive, everyone.” It was Pidge, not Keith calling his name. It had just been wishful thinking.

“For now, I guess.” Judging from the sickening feeling in his abdomen, Lance guessed he didn’t have much time. Who knew how long his second wind would last? He needed to act, and he needed to act now. He looked around at the ragtag crew assembled in the train: Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Keith, everyone watching him with pointed concern.

“Shiro,” he groaned. “Allura. C’mere and help me.”

With Shiro’s hands beneath his armpits, Lance was able to sit up. He felt a little better, like his muscles were remembering how to move instead of how to just be useless rubber. But the poison was tightening its noose. He pretended to try and get on his feet, then collapsed in a half-fake coughing fit back onto his side. As he had hoped, Shiro and Allura knelt down beside him in concern.

“Listen, you two. I have something to ask you.” He coughed again, loudly. “Oooh, I feel terrible,” he said as dramatically as possible.

“What’s going on?” Shiro whispered.

Concern was sketched all across Allura’s face. But before she could protest, Lance cut her off. “Listen, Allura, before you say anything, just hear me out.”

“Hear you out with what?”

“Oh, the pain! The pain! Allura, come closer!” Lance rolled over again. He didn’t believe in half-assed acting. And besides, most of it wasn’t really acting anyway. He hissed, “I can save Altea. And I can save your brother, Shiro. But I need you both to listen to me.”

Then, he whispered to them his plan.

When he was finished, Shiro drew back, eyebrows knit.

“But what about you?”

Lance clawed at his stomach. “Ouch! Oooh, make it stop!” He hocked up a bloody loogie, then whispered, “I think my story only ends one way. But it’s okay, you guys. I’m okay with it.”

Shiro’s jaw ground back and forth. Finally, he said, “I don't like it...but I’ll do it.”

“Allura?”

“If you’re correct about the dam and its bridge, then we may have a shot at saving Altea after all. But I still say I should go with you. This is as much my battle as yours. And I have nobody left to lose.”

“No, Allura. I promised you I would find a way to save Altea and honestly, I wasn’t planning on keeping that promise. But I am now. You need to live. The people of Altea need you to lead them. And if my plan goes wrong, you’re our last shot we have at calming the Balmera; you’re the only other one with a connection to it.”

“But—”

“But you already killed Lotor and his mother. Will Zarkon be enough? When does it stop?”

Lance could tell his question scared both of them. The wavering in Allura's eyes told him as much, but they were also soft and kind when she said, “I would tell you that you are not one to judge me, but I’m no longer sure that is the case.” After a dragging moment, she sighed in defeat. “Very well.”

“Cool. Help me stand?”

They each took one of his hands and pulled him to his feet, where Lance wobbled for a moment, lightheaded. He took a steadying breath. Everybody seemed waiting for him to say something.

“Whew. Glad that’s over. Feeling much better now.”  
Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Yep, okey-dokey everyone. Here’s the deal: we’re getting off this train.”

Pidge put her hand in the air. “And how do you propose we do that? Because, sorry, I’m not getting off the same way that witch did. I like my bones inside my body, where they belong.”

“And also, what about the antidote?” Hunk chewed on his lower lip, the way he did when he worried, which was always. “You and Keith are both infected, right?”

“Good news on that: turns out Allura has a background in chemistry thanks to her dad. She’s pretty sure she can reverse engineer more antidote from the stuff we have.” Lance elbowed Allura. She coughed.

“Oh, um, yes. Yes, that’s correct. If we can get back to Altea, we can use Father’s old laboratory he used to study the Balmera. Everything will be dandy.”

_Dandy?_ Lance elbowed her again, just for good measure.

“The point _being,_  everyone, that we’re going to detach this car and float down the tracks to a stop, smooth as silk, so you can all get back on the ground in one piece. Also, Pidge, I’ll hold that bomb. Not that I don’t trust you or anything. But you did kinda turn an entire train yard into a crater.”

“And it was awesome,” Pidge muttered, but she handed Lance the bomb anyway. He tucked it carefully into his waistband. It made kind of a large bulge, but hey. He was the Ghost of the West. Everyone was used to that already.

“Keith? Any objections?”

Keith was silent, staring at his boots. Then, a long sigh. “I guess...we have to do what we have to do. We can live to fight another day.”

This shocked the hell out of Lance. He was going to ask if he had really just heard Keith right, when Hunk piped up. “Um, but what about Zarkon? And Altea? Are we just giving up?”

“Nobody is giving anything up,” Lance said, not dropping Keith’s eyes. He wanted him so badly to understand. But he couldn’t tell him. Not now. If Hunk knew what Lance was really up to, he would never let him out of his sight. “We’re in the middle of the train right now; if we detach this car, that’s still, like, half of Zarkon’s mining equipment lost. It’ll take him ages to get more machinery to Altea.”

Hunk frowned. “Speaking of train cars, why are there so many passenger cars on a supply train? It doesn’t make sense.” Lance had forgotten about that, but remembered noticing it atop the roof. Hunk was right; if all Zarkon was going to do was mine and kill, there was no reason to have so many empty passenger cars.

“They’re for the citizens of Altea.” Allura said grimly. “I know how Zarkon thinks. Any people who manage to escape the initial destruction, Zarkon will offer a safe place aboard this train. Who knows where he’ll take them, or what he’ll use them for. The people of Altea will become slaves, or worse, be executed.”

Lance smiled in what he hoped was a confident grin. “We’ll find a way to stop it. Which we can’t do if we all die on this train that is, may I remind you, infested with Galra guards.”

Shiro put his hand on Keith’s uninjured shoulder, which Lance was beginning to suspect was kinda his brotherly mentor Thing. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”

Reluctantly, Keith nodded.

And it seemed he was about to open his mouth to speak when, suddenly, he collapsed.

“Keith? Keith!”

Lance ran to Shiro, who had caught Keith’s limp body. “Lower him to the floor. Do it!” Lance unbuttoned Keith’s velvet vest and shucked it off.

He felt the blood drain from his face. It might as well have drained onto Keith, because almost his entire shirt was stained red.

“Keith, you stubborn idiot,” Lance mumbled, not even bothering to try and keep his voice from trembling. Of course Keith wouldn’t tell anyone about how bad his wound was getting. Of course he would want them all to keep carrying on and worry about him last. Lance ripped off the hem of his shirt.

He drew the vial of antidote from his pants pocket and stared at it.

“I found my reason, Papa,” Lance whispered.

Quickly, before anyone saw him or he could think about how horrible it felt to doom himself, Lance uncorked the vial drained it into Keith’s stab wound.

He wrapped Keith’s shoulder with practiced hands. A small moan. Keith’s eyes fluttered, and then his indescribable, blue-grey-brown eyes were drinking Lance in as if they hadn’t seen him in months.

“Lance,” Keith said, sounding kind of high on pain. “Hey babe.”

“Hey.” There was a rock in Lance’s throat. He waved at the rest of the crew to give them some space. It took a little bit of awkward scooching, but Lance managed to maneuver himself so that he was sitting behind Keith, holding his head in his lap. Both their worlds were upside down from the other.

“I feel wrong.”  
“That’s the blood loss talking. And the poison. You stupid _—_ why wouldn’t you tell us earlier you weren’t doing well?”

“Didn’t want you to worry,” Keith mumbled. “How’re you?”

“I’m great.” Lance felt the empty vial weighing down his pocket like a tombstone. But somehow, all he could manage to do was smile at Keith through the tears that were building in his eyes. Keith’s hand had slipped into his own. It had been less than a day, but gods, had Lance missed the feeling of Keith’s hand. “Yeah, I’m really great. Or I will be.”

“It’s all going to be okay now, right?”

Lance hiccuped a little. “Yeah. It’s all gonna be okay. I promise.”

Grunting, Keith pulled himself into one of the plush velvet benches. He sighed. “I’m really sorry I messed everything up so bad.” He looked at Lance for a long moment. “You were right, you know. That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier.”

“Keith, it’s…”

“But I’ve been _thinking_ ,” Keith pressed on, “a lot about what you said. Especially at our funeral for Allura. I thought a lot about her sacrifice. And now that she’s back…” Talking had never been Keith’s thing, and Lance could see him struggling with the words now. He looked at Allura, who was watching with her mouth tucked behind her clasped hands. “I watched you give you life for something you believe in. But you had nobody left. And I’m not like you.” Keith looked back at Lance. “I need to destroy the Galra and fix all the things my ancestors broke when they helped build the company...but I also need you.”

Keith looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but Lance’s eyes while Allura and Shiro slipped out of the train car. “What I’m trying to say is...I’m sorry. For making you think I didn’t care. Because I do. A lot. And just now, when I thought I was going to lose you...”

He couldn’t get any more out, because Lance was too busy kissing him.

It wasn’t like their first kiss, or any other. This kiss was different than what they were used to: it was an apology. Lance could taste it on Keith’s tongue, on his lips, on his hot breath in his mouth. He could feel it in lightning that had replaced his own blood and the swelling love for this man that pulled his heart so taught he thought surely it would tear and spill this feeling everywhere.

It was them, all their dirt and stubble and pain from this whole disaster. But it was them.

Lance pulled back, resting his forehead against Keith’s. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for just one moment, trying to preserve everything about this moment as he had in Chicago. Keith’s hands on his jaw, the taste of Keith in his mouth.

Then:

“And I’m sorry.”

“What…?”

The question in Keith’s eyes almost broke Lance. But there was no turning back from this path now. Lance drew away and Keith tried to follow, but was yanked back by the handcuffs that anchored Keith’s wrist to the seat.

“Lance? What’s this? What are you doing?”

He backed away from Keith, trying and failing to keep from crying. He couldn’t look at Keith. If he looked at Keith, Lance would crumble.

The door to the cabin opened, and in came Allura and Shiro. They nodded at him: the train was ready to be detached.

“Hold them, you guys.” Lance said softly.

“Lance?” Hunk gave him a questioning look. Allura grabbed Pidge’s wrists and Shiro took Hunk’s.

The panic in Pidge’s eyes was evident, and he watched her figure it out. “No. No, Lance, you can’t.”

Lance walked backwards towards the door, feeling the full force of the war waging in his chest. It was his decision versus everything else in his being, every piece of love he had uncovered the last few days for all of these people. Then, he slipped up: he looked at Keith.

Keith’s questioning look had changed to one of horror, and it tore Lance apart. It was worse than the poison, worse than any torture Zarkon could inflict or that he had felt in all his years as the Ghost of the West. The single, piercing look of despair and horror and betrayal on Keith was the bloodiest injury of Lance’s life.

“Lance, no. Don’t do this. Lance. _Lance!”_

“I have to finish this,” Lance said. All he had to do was pull the pin, and their train car would begin to drift away from the main engine, losing its speed. Hunk and Pidge struggled against Allura and Shiro. He had to go soon or never. “Zarkon has to die, or he’ll never stop. I’ve ran away from him my entire life. Everything he’s done is my fault, because I didn’t do what I was supposed to when the Balmera gave me the chance the first time. Saving Altea is my responsibility. Not any of yours.”

“But you said it yourself! We can figure this out! We have time!” Keith’s eyes were a wilderness, they were as wild as Mother Nature, crazed, panicked, the look of a man who was watching his world die. “We can reverse engineer the antidote. We can both be okay. _We can_.”

Allura spoke softly through her tears. “It would take months to do something like that, Keith.”

“It’s not her fault, Keith. I lied. It was me. And it doesn’t matter anyway.” Lance held up the empty vial of antidote. Smiled but failed through the puffiness of his face and the tears streaming down his cheeks. “You’re going to be just fine. I won’t be needing this where I’m going.”

Keith looked at the vial, then back at Lance. The vial, Lance. Then he began to cry in earnest. It was ugly, raw, real crying, the kind that was exhuming one’s soul from the abyss of his very being, drawing it out kicking and screaming and throwing it into the ugly darkness of the world. Keith cried like he was being pulled apart.

 

_“You’d let the whole world die if it meant saving me.”_

_“And you’d sacrifice everyone you love to just save some people you don’t even_ know! _”_

 

But it was more complicated than that, wasn’t it?

“But you hated me for leaving you, Lance. You hated me for it. Why do you get to go when I finally want to stay? Why do you get to give your life to end the Galra and not me?”

Lance put his hand on the door. “Keith, for ten years I’ve done nothing but steal and kill and care about myself. All the time I’ve spent ignoring what the Galra did to me, you’ve been fighting them instead of having a life. If Zarkon raises the Balmera, he’ll be unstoppable. Altea will just be the first in his path, and the Blades will never have a chance. You’ll waste whatever life you have left in some war you can’t win. I didn’t stop them when I had the chance. This is on me, not on you. I see that now.”

The golden sunlight fell across Lance’s face, blinding him, but he didn’t close his eyes; he didn’t want to miss a single moment of the man he loved, even if it was while that man was being destroyed by Lance’s own hand.

Lance took a breath.

“So I’m going to end this, all of this, and I’m giving you your life back. Go and see what the world has. Go find someone and fall in love and try to find a way to move on. That’s what I want for you. Can you promise me that?”

Keith strained against his handcuffs. “Don’t leave! _I love you, Lance!_ Don’t leave. Don’t leave. Don’t leave…”

In all of Keith’s thrashing, the golden pocket watch had slipped out of his breast pocket. Though he still had one hand free, Keith made no move for it. Instead, he kicked it away, sobbing.

Gently, like he was scooping up a small bird, Lance collected the pocket watch. He studied it for a second.

“I’m not dying just to abandon you,” Lance said one more time, stowing the watch safely in his breast pocket. “But I can die to save you.”

Lance tried to push all of his love out of his chest and into Keith, through the unforgiving restrains of reality. He wanted him to know. That this wasn’t in spite of Keith. He wanted him to know the gift he was trying to give him.  This scene would be burned like a flashbulb in his memory: Allura and Shiro holding down a struggling Hunk and Pidge, and Keith chained to the seat, gone limp, his face a mask of the most excruciating pain imaginable. And the knowledge that Lance had been responsible for all of it.

 

_“There are reasons for living, yes, many of them. But there_ are _reasons for dying.”_

 

“I love you. Watch for me. On the horizon.”

 

_And with that, Lance stepped out onto the stone ledge of the window, and Keith slid it shut behind him. The last he saw was Keith, half-dressed, walking over to the door, pretending to rub sleep out of his eyes._

_He didn’t want to leave Keith. Because the truth was, Lance knew, deep inside that men like him wound up swinging, or hunted down or thrown behind bars until they rotted away to nothing. They didn’t have love affairs with aristocratic guys like Keith._

_They didn’t have happy endings._

 

Steeling himself, Lance stepped out the door, knelt down, and pulled the pin from its coupling.

He wanted to say a thousand million more words, but there was no time; their half of the train was dropping speed rapidly. For the last time in his life—it hit him like a brick, _the last time in his life—_ Lance looked at Keith. Drank in every single detail about him.

Then, Lance turned to face his fate. _I’ll never see his face again,_ Lance thought. But he couldn’t think like that. Not now. Not here, at the end of all things. This was the choice he had made, and he would face his Bloodride with courage, just like his parents had. There were too many soldiers aboard this train to let arrive at Altea: they were a formidable threat all their own. He would bring Zarkon to justice. He would blow the dam. Free the river. Save the Balmera, Altea, and his friends.

No. No, not his friends.

His family.

Lance jumped the distance across the open tracks. He landed on the platform outside what was now the last car of the moving train.

Before he could change his mind, Lance turned around one last time. He watched the back half of the train grow further and further apart, and right then he felt almost a physical link stretching out between him and Keith, growing ready to snap. The distance was now far too great to jump. There was no going back now.

He was alone.


	8. Bloodride

Here was what Lance knew: that Zarkon was on this train somewhere in front of him, and he had to make it to the steam engine itself, or close enough to it to blow it all to kingdom come. 

_Please,_ Lance prayed to whomever was listening, _please let this plan work. I mean, literally nothing else has, so please just let this one go right._ Regardless of if his prayer was heard, Lance still felt a strange sense of calm. For the first time he could be sure that his friends were safe. Or at least for the moment. Keith, Allura, Pidge, Hunk and Shiro were out of harm’s way. They would live.

_Not for very much longer if you don’t do what you came here to do,_ he reminded himself. _So stop being sentimental and get going._

For working his way up the train, Lance figured he had two options. One, he could barge straight through the cars and fight whatever or whoever was waiting in there for him. Two, he could try and go quietly over the roof. That sounded like a much better option.

_Blam!_

_Blam!_

Two bullets ricocheted off the metal ladder by Lance’s head.

“Hey, you!”

He whipped around: two Galra guards were advancing through the empty passenger car, each with a revolver raised. Lance sighed. So much for stealth.

Turning, he raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. You got me. Didn’t anyone ever teach you guys how to knock?”

“Put your hands up!”

“Um, hello? They’re already up, wise one.”

“Oh. Uh...well, keep them there!” Something about this put a pause on Lance’s scheming on how he was going to kill these two, and for the first time he really looked at the guards. The one who had told him to put his hands up seemed to be just a teenager, maybe a year or two younger than Lance, his face covered with acne. And the woman on his right had messy blonde hair with a flower stuck in her braid. When he got past the Galra uniforms, Lance saw that these were just kids.

He remembered how Zarkon had been so bloodthirsty for the people of Altea. They had followed Alfor, yes, but they hadn’t been the ones to destroy Zarkon’s home, just as these kids weren’t the ones who had killed Lance’s parents. They were probably just out looking for a paycheck, saw a job that would hire them if they knew how to shoot, and took it.

_Aw, shit._ This was going to make everything a lot harder.

“Look, guys,” Lance said amiably, keeping his hands raised. Neither of the guards noticed his right foot weaseling off the shoe on his left. “It’s been a really long day for all of us, I’m sure. And I’m even more sure that neither of you want to tango with the Ghost of the West, yeah?”

The two guards looked at each other, their brutality slipping for a moment. But then the boy brandished his revolver at Lance again. “Quiet! Y-you’re now our prisoner!”

“You’re now our prisoner, _sir,_ ” Lance corrected.

That threw them off their game long enough for him to slip his shoe off to the point where it was dangling off his big toe.

“I said be quiet!”

“Like I said guys, it’s been a really long day. I think we could all...use...a little... _nap!”_

Lance kicked out his foot and sent his shoe flying like a stylish bullet. It hit the blond guard right between the eyes. She went down clutching her forehead, and the boy was so surprised he accidentally fired his gun.

This was his chance. Lance rushed the two, grabbed the boy’s wrist and pointed it towards the ceiling as he squeezed off one, two, three more rounds. He brought up his knee into the boy’s crotch. He let go of the gun real fast after that.

The blond was beginning to recover. Lance caught the falling revolver and knocked her on the top of her skull with its butt. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. Pivoting, he kicked the boy in the temple with his bare foot, making it lights out for both of them.

_Fuck._ His second wind was feeling more and more like a small breeze. Lance knelt down and took a moment to breath in, breath out. _Just think about anything else besides how much it hurts. Or Keith. Or Pidge or Hunk or—actually, just don’t think at all._

He searched the two guards as he put his shoe back on and came up with a handful  of bullets, plus a bullwhip. Whips really weren’t Lance’s style, but hey, he’d take what he could get.

The next car was cargo, but this one had a small sliding door built into its rear. _Thank gods,_ Lance thought. The prospect of having to climb a ladder right now made him want to puke. Stepping lightly over the gap between the cars, Lance slid the door to the cargo open, not even bothering to listen to what the hell was going on around him. He was tired, and he wanted this to be over. Sue him.

The door slid open to reveal quite the scene. There were crates lining both walls, about five Galra guards, and, best of all, a giant gatling gun sitting square and ready to go in the center of the car.

Lance almost laughed at how cruel the universe could be.

“Hey!” One of the guards shouted.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m an intruder. You’re guards. Can we please just skip the foreplay and get to the shooty shooty part?”

Without waiting for a response, Lance licked his palms and began to climb the ladder on the outside of the car.

From within the wooden walls of the car, Lance heard the telltale whine of the gatling gun warming up. Hopefully this just wasn’t the kind that could aim upwa—

A storm of bullets tore through the wood in front of Lance, forcing him to stagger back several steps. Splinters flew in all directions like angry hornets, which was great and perfect because it meant they were just going to tear him to shreds from below. Just what he always wanted. _What do they need a gatling for in Altea anyway?_ But Lance knew the answer: Zarkon liked to play with his food.

The train car wasn’t that long, but it seemed quite the distance to traverse over a pit of bullets that would tear him apart. Such was life. Lance didn’t have much of a choice; it was over the hurricane or through it; at least this way they wouldn’t be able to see their target.

He licked his lips, bounced a few times on the balls of his feet, and took off.

They must have heard his unsubtle footsteps from beneath. As soon as he started to run the gatling gun ramped up again, and flashes of streaking yellow light bit at his ankles. It was like running from a pack of wild dogs, if the dogs were carrying guns with all four paws. Lance ran as hard as he could, ignoring the blinding pain in his gut, ducking his head to avoid getting a piece of shrapnel in the eye, and hoped against hope that whoever was assigned gatling duty this afternoon was a really bad shot.

But there was a problem with running across a roof that was being torn apart, and that was: it didn’t really want to hold Lance’s weight. He was close to the end of the car when the wood beneath his feet groaned, sagged, and collapsed.

He yelped, grabbed for something to hold onto, and came back with empty air.

Lance fell backwards into the relative darkness of the train car.

Lucky for him, it wasn’t that far of a ways to fall, maybe ten feet at most. Unlucky for him, he smacked right onto the long barrels of the gatling.

There was an awkward moment of eye contact with the gun operator. “Well, hello there,” Lance grinned, right before the whine of the gun filled his ears and the gunner began firing willy nilly, swinging the gun around in an attempt to shake Lance off. He wrapped his arms around the barrels and held on for dear life; whoever had oiled the rotation hinges of the gun sure knew their shit better than the people trained to fire it.

Bullets flew in all directions, scattering the rest of the Galra guards. Barrels and crates were smashed to smithereens, and Lance really just hoped that one of them wasn’t filled with—

_ba-BOOM_

...gunpowder.

The explosion flung Lance off the gun and tossed him into the wall of the car like a ragdoll. A persistent ringing invaded his ears, and everything tilted as if his brain had forgotten which way was up. He groaned. So far the not-killing-people strategy was not having a wonderful success rate.

He peered around at the car, or what was left of it: the entire front third had been blown off, and the remaining bit appeared to be on fire, because why not. And the rest of the train was moving away…

Away. _Oh, shit._ The explosion must have blown off the couplings.

Though he felt like he was dragging his body through acidic mud, Lance hoisted himself to his feet, patted himself down to make sure all his limbs were still intact (which, miraculously, they were), and began to run. Again. The bullwhip he uncoiled from his hip, because he was about to do something very stupid with it. That was the reason he hated these things: once, a couple of years ago, Lance had been a big fan of bullwhips because they were stylish and could really be pretty deadly in a fight if you knew how to use one.

But they also tempted people like him into doing tricks like this, and it was exactly that which had almost cost Lance a hand the last time he had danced with one of these little devils.

“Past’s for forgettin’, present’s for doin’,” he mumbled. It had been one of Papa’s favorite sayings.

Flames licked at Lance’s feet as he ran, but he tried to pay them no mind. Instead he focused on a railing out back of the next car that would do nicely. Lance cracked his whip and it curled around the railing, just like he wanted. _Yep, still got it._

Just as he was about to make the jump, however, his car was rocked by another explosion, and it knocked Lance right off his feet. He went tumbling along the burning floor but managed to hold tight to the whip’s handle, his other hand flailing for something, anything, to grab ahold of.

_Aha_.

His fingers curled around the metal-studded rim of a barrel, but its structure had been shot to shit. The lid broke off and sent Lance tumbling with it right over the edge of the car.

It was a good thing Lance prided himself on his cat-like reflexes. He flipped the barrel lid under his feet and landed on it, safe-ish and sound. The flaming wreckage of the gatling gun car sulked off into the distance, severed from the rest of the train.

Only problem was, Lance wasn’t. Or maybe it was a good thing. He didn’t really know. What he did know was that he was being dragged along behind the train thanks to his bullwhip, more or less surfing on top of the right rail using the iron-braced barrel lid as a board. Definitely not the position he wanted to be in right now.

His stomach was in complete and utter agony. If it hadn’t already, the knife wound had probably been ripped completely open.

Oh, and the flames must have also spread to the car he was currently hanging onto for dear life before the gatling car had detached. Wonderful.

The barrel screeched like a bat out of hell against the rail. And just when Lance thought it couldn’t get any worse, a guard poked her head out the back entrance to the car, saw him, and raised a rifle.

“Oh, come on!” Lance yelled.

But that didn’t stop the bullets from flying, pinging off the tracks around him, throwing up showers of angry red sparks that stung at his exposed skin. He yelped and reflexively jerked away, but this screwed up his balance; Lance toppled off the narrow rail, managing only by some minor miracle to keep his feet on the barrel lid.

Still holding on tight to the bullwhip, he careened out wide on the dusty, flat ground like some sort of demented, landlocked kite, skittering and bouncing along so hard Lance was sure he was going to bite off his tongue. At least he was at too awkward an angle for the gunwoman to get at; she couldn’t stand on the back deck sort of thing because it was engulfed in flames, so she had to resort to poking her gun out the back door and taking potshots that exploded like artillery shells in the dirt around Lance. There were going to be some extremely unhappy groundhogs come morning. He unslung his stolen revolver from the teenage guard he had crotch kicked and fired off a few rounds of his own, but it was nearly impossible to aim in any capacity given his current situation. The guardswoman ducked, waited for him to run dry, and began her assault anew.

He had to get back on the train. Slowly, he began reeling himself in, grabbing the bullwhip and tugging hand over hand. Of course this brought him closer in range to the rifle, but he didn’t really have much choice. It was that or become a Lance-shaped smear on the dirt.

It only occurred to him now that Zarkon had probably told everyone to be ready for any intruders on his retreat to the front of the train. That would certainly explain why the entire train seemed like a preternaturally primed slaughterhouse.

Nothing for it but to keep going. His blood was singing its old song, and for one single second Lance felt the thrill of a good fight energizing his worn out body.

Then he remembered what this was, what it really was, and felt that excitement snuff out. Gone were the times when he could fight carelessly and with abandon. Kidnapping Keith felt like a hundred years ago: Lance had thrilled at the notion of skirting the narrow line between living and dying, drawing some maniacal power from putting himself in danger. But now he knew that it had only been because he had been in some sort of horrible waking sleep, only caring superficially about himself and not at all about anyone or anything else. These bullets seemed more real now. He cared if they bit into his flesh.

But he was awake now. And he was going to win.

He was also out of time. Bracing himself, Lance leapt from his disintegrated barrel lid. His fingers searched for purchase on the side of the train car and found it in the window frames, his toes hooking onto some of the vain filigree Zarkon had decorated the train with.

A quick glance backwards confirmed there would be no entering through the doorway; about half the train car was now a blazing inferno, the flames whipped into a fervor by the screaming wind and dry desert air. How the hell else was he supposed to—

The butt of a rifle punched through the window by Lance’s left ear, followed by the suspicious head of the guardswoman. _Move. Now._

She spotted Lance the same second he clamped down on her wrist with both hands. When she fired, the proximity to the rifle’s muzzle blew out Lance’s eardrum. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the siren-like wailing in his brain, and began to climb up over the window using the woman as a rope. He stepped on the rifle and it twisted from her hands. Her head was the next target of his boot. She slumped over the broken window, out like a light.

The inside of the car was at least a thousand degrees hotter than the outside. Lance instantly began to sweat from the proximity to the flames. Fishing around in his pockets, he was delighted to find that the pants he had stolen from Allura contained a blue bandana. He took the waterskin from the guard’s pocket, soaked the bandana, and wrapped it around the lower half of his face.

A wall of heat sent him staggering. He couldn’t just leave the guardswoman here or she’d wake up burning to death. Lance borrowed her knife and set to cutting out the velvet coverings of a few seats. He dragged the woman back inside, wrapped her up like a caterpillar, and then unceremoniously shoved her out the window. She’d have a few broken bones, but with any luck her spine would stay mostly intact. He didn’t have time to worry any more than that.

Lance checked his inventory: one revolver, which being reloaded would leave him with twelve extra bullets in his pocket. The bullwhip was presumably burning on the back of this car, so that sucked. One bandana, one badass hat, and his winning smile.

That’s all he had ever needed.

The wind was beginning to pick up, feeding the ravenous flames. For what was probably the last time, Lance began to run. He burst through cars now, not bothering to deal with the guards inside. By the time they realized someone was sprinting through the car Lance was already gone, the flames hot on his heels, and the guards were too busy worrying about the blaze to shoot with much conviction at the Ghost of the West. There were so many passenger cars; dining cars, sleeping cars, on and on. A prison for all the survivors of Altea. Or more like a cattle pen where they would await their slaughter. Lance felt a grim satisfaction that they would all burn; no matter what happened now he had taken some of this evil with him.

For once, his long legs proved to be an asset. Lance had outrun the fire by at least a couple of cars. He exploded into the penultimate car—the last before the giant coal and engine  cars—and threw a wooden chair against the wall, and shoved the broken leg through the door handles. That would hopefully keep the guards at bay for a while.

He turned, and froze.

Zarkon laughed.

 

 

 

The entire car smelled of death. This one was was even fancier than the dinner one they had met in earlier, but the effect was ruined by the copious amounts of blood that stained the floor like bad wine. Slumped into a row of passenger chairs was Zarkon, facing the front of the train, his chest rising and falling laboriously.

“So,” he rasped. “The Ghost of the West rises from dead once again. How appropriate.”

Lance sighed, feeling all at once the energy that had carried him throughout his frenzied run drain down into his toes and then out to join the bloody puddles on the floor. He had nothing left. Nothing at all. He limped forward through the rows of chairs and collapsed into the one directly across the walking hall from Zarkon, as if they were just two men riding the train to Chicago together, both bleeding out of their bellies, both about to be kissed by death.

Zarkon lolled his head over to study Lance. He didn’t look good; his face was whiter than a sheet, his once magnificent suit ruined with blood. A meaty fist was clamped over the bullet wound in his stomach in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding from what Lance guessed was many, many perforations in his intestines. Maybe the baby Balmera had helped his shot after all.

“You don’t look so hot, man.”

“I could say the same about you.” With a Herculean effort, Zarkon heaved himself up into better sitting posture. “But it is of no consequence. I have survived much worse than this. Haggar will be along shortly to heal me.”

Lance looked at the ceiling. It was so beautiful and ornate. He wondered who had crafted all those filigreed spirals. “Haggar’s dead. Princess Allura killed her.”

“No. You _lie_.”

The pain in Zarkon’s voice took Lance aback. Allura had mentioned something about the creature once being his wife, but Lance hadn’t really absorbed it. “She is not gone. She...she cannot be gone.”

“I think she’s been gone for a while.” Why was he wanting to _comfort_ this monster? Nothing made sense anymore. But Lance was too tired to argue with his brain.

He and Zarkon were silent for a bit. Lance couldn’t quite tell if it was companionable kind of silence or the figuring-out-how-to-murder-you kind.

“So,” Zarkon said finally. “You returned. To kill me, I presume? To pass judgement on one you could not possibly understand?”

“No,” Lance said, still looking at the ceiling. The patterns seemed to be swimming before his eyes, mixing with the ringing in his ear to create a beautiful mural of dizziness. “That’s where you’re wrong. Ten years ago, you came to my home and you murdered my parents for the Balmera crystals that were underneath our property. You burned everything down. I know you better than anyone, Zarkon, because I _am_ you, just like Allura is you. We’re all the same.”

“Then I am sorry.” This made Lance look at him. Zarkon was staring at the ceiling as well, but his eyes were far, far away. “I am sorry for the pain I have caused you, but if you are the same as me, you will understand why I did it. Even so, you have your right to revenge, just as I have mine. You will kill me, and you will inspire more revenge, and it will go around, and around and around.” Zarkon trailed off into a wet laugh, which turned into a bloody cough.

Lance shook his head. “You’re wrong again. I’m not here for revenge.”

Zarkon’s eyes darkened. “Then what are you here for? To die for nothing?”

“This isn’t revenge for my parents. Haven’t you been listening at all? I forgive you. I _forgive you_ , Zarkon, because I know how much it hurts.” The wound in Lance’s heart throbbed, but it also lightened as it had when he and Allura had talked, as if someone had just drawn back the curtains to a very dark room for the first time in many years. “But just because someone hurt you doesn’t mean you get to hurt others; you already killed Alfor. You’ve had your revenge.”

Lance was floating in time. It seemed to him that his voice was coming from very far away. He couldn’t tell if he was aboard the train, or if he was in Chicago with Keith, or if he was ten years old and watching the birds wheel in the sky with Papa. Everything was happening simultaneously, circling around and around, just as Zarkon had said. He could feel how dangerously close he was to falling into that orbit.

“But I’m not here to die for my parents. I won’t become another you. This Bloodride...it isn’t to avenge Mama and Papa’s deaths.

“It’s for my friends’ lives.”

Lance was struck with the truth of the words as he was saying them; he wasn’t here to throw his life away to stop some nameless evil he felt responsible for, or to find some way to plug up the seeping holes of grief and anger and hurt inside of him. No, this sacrifice was different than that. He wouldn’t die to abandon Keith.

But he could die to save him.

Zarkon was laughing again, blood dribbling down his chin. He didn’t seem to care, though, only kept on laughing and laughing even though it must have been excruciating.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your _conviction_ ,” Zarkon spat. A globule of blood flew out of his mouth and spattered against a golden wall. “Your naivety. You believe killing me will stop this but it will stop _nothing_. The Balmera will still rise and Altea will still be crushed. The only difference is that I will not be there to control the beast. It will destroy Altea, and then it will destroy everything. You cannot win. I will have my revenge. Even if it destroys me.”

Lance could feel the heat emanating from behind that barred door. They were out of time; the fire had caught up.

“See, I hate to say it again, but you’re wrong.” Lance glanced out the window; they were nearly at the bridge and dam structure now. _Tick, tock._

“What do you mean? How could you stop me? I have an army aboard this train. I have enough weapons to start the Civil War over again and win it. What do you have?” Zarkon gestured to nothing. “Courage? Hope?”

“Nope. Something better.” He drew from his waistband Pidge’s homemade concoction. “A bomb.”

Zarkon’s eyes went wide.

“I’ve been thinking about this dam. It seems to me that if it goes and the river reverts back to its course, the Balmera might just be cooled off enough to want to stay put. How does that sound to you?” Lance just hoped he had made it close enough to the engine to the steam engine to destroy it. Maybe sitting right behind the coal car was a blessing; his explosion would certainly be memorable.

“No,” Zarkon whispered in horror. “No, you can’t.”

The door to their car couldn’t stand the heat any longer. With one final groan it was blasted apart and the flames poured in like a ravenous high tide. Bits of burning wood rained down around their heads like falling stars.

_Was this what you felt like Mama? When you were trapped inside a burning hell, was it beautiful?_

From out the windows Lance could see they were about to cross the dam; one his left was a steep drop off, and to the right was a beautiful shining river. Lance leapt out of his seat, away from Zarkon’s clawing hands, and held the bomb high. He hoped against hope the guards had found the sense to somehow abandon ship by now.

But Zarkon wasn’t spent yet.

With what looked like tremendous effort, moving with uncanny speed for someone so huge and injured, the man launched himself out of his seat and body slammed Lance, his elbow driving into Lance’s knife wound. All the wind was forced from his lungs with an _oomph_ and Lance went sprawling on the floor. But before he could move Zarkon was on top of him, heavy breath stinking of blood in Lance’s face, hands scrabbling for the bomb that had gone skittering across the carpet. And just like in the desert, Zarkon was too heavy, too massive for Lance to fight. He was trapped. If Zarkon got that bomb and threw it out the window, Lance was finished.

_No._ No, he had come too far to fail. He wouldn’t fail.

Gathering up the last bit of strength left in him, Lance planted his foot in Zarkon’s crotch and shoved. Hard. Zarkon wheezed in pain, and Lance felt just the slightest bit of weight shift off him.

Just a little, but enough.

Lance drove his knee up into the soft flesh of Zarkon’s belly, swiftly. Once. Twice. The bigger man fell aside on third go and Lance scuttled, crab-like, abandoning any semblance of dignity as he lunged for the bomb.

Just as his hands found their prize, a vice closed around Lance’s ankle and yanked him backwards.

“Give me that, you insolent child!” Zarkon clawed at Lance’s face, his chest, tearing away chunks of his shirt. They wrestled back and forth along the ground. And all the while the flames crept ever closer, eager to devour their prize.

Lance’s foot, looking for stable ground in the scuffle, glanced off Zarkon’s forehead. There was a terrible _crack_ as Zarkon’s neck whipped backwards at an awful angle. His body went limp on the floor, chest rising and falling, breath wheezing in and out. A pool of blood spread under him like a glistening oil slick.

Struggling to draw breath himself, Lance reached for a seat and pulled himself up into it. Zarkon’s eyes followed him as he moved, but his mountain-like body was totally still, save for some trembling in his lips and fingertips.

Lance looked at him. He was obviously in a huge amount of pain, and even though Lance had seen more than his share of it in his life, he still didn’t want to see it like this, up close and ugly and devouring its victim. But it was Lance’s doing, and he owed Zarkon the dignity of meeting his eyes as he died. And now the river was here: they were both out of time.

“This, Zarkon, is fate come knocking.” The heat combed through Lance’s hair, toying with what soon would belong to its flames. “How will you answer?”

There was a look in Zarkon’s eye that Lance had never seen before.

With all his strength, Lance pivoted and threw the bomb into the inferno.

The single second between the bomb leaving his hand and the explosion stretched on and on in a slow-motion current, and Lance spent the time staring out the window at the river. If he pretended hard enough, it almost looked like the ocean.

He thought he would have rather liked to see the ocean one more time before he died.

The ocean, and Keith.

That was the last rational thought to ever wander through his mind before the explosion erupted with all the ferocity of a hurricane. Lance was briefly aware of the sensation of flying, of broken glass, of stone-hard water, of sinking, sinking, sinking beside the flash of a bent and broken golden pocket watch, and then nothing at all.

  
**

_Allura._

 

An ear-splitting boom made Allura wheel Blue around mid-gallop, the horse rearing in the air with a terrified whinny.

Before their detached train car had even slowed to a complete halt, Allura had leapt out and began sprinting towards the river, hands jackknifing through the air, her braid swinging from side to side like a pendulum keeping time with her run. She had to make it to the cavern entrances she knew to be along this river, lest the flowing water failed to sooth the Balmera’s heat and it rose to deal death once again. If she failed, all might be lost.

But Allura hadn’t been alone. As she ran, she heard the familiar sound of hooves, and turned  to find Lance’s horse—seemingly conjured from the red desert dust—rapidly gaining ground on her. What was more, the horse had stopped right in front of her as if inviting her aboard.

“Very well then,” Allura said, hesitantly stepping toward the animal. “Thank you.”

No sooner had she sat on Blue than the horse shot away, moving hard for the river as if she knew where to go. And maybe she did: with so much of her body pressed against the horse, Allura thought she could feel the Balmera energy within her own breast mirrored in the horse’s. She hadn’t ever considered animals capable of mirroring her connection to the Balmera before, but then again, this was Lance’s horse, and anything was possible with that man. Perhaps Blue had spent enough time with her master to absorb his power.

Or perhaps it was just a very peculiar horse.

So Allura had been riding hard, bent low over Blue’s mane when the explosion rattled the teeth in her mouth. And she knew without having to look what it was. Who it belonged to.

But she did look. Allura turned back in her saddle and watched the great dam go up in a haze of flame and smoke. The train steaming along on top of it thrown into the air like a child’s toy, careening down to earth only to be lost in the massive wall of water released from the dam’s broken walls.

She clamped a hand to her mouth. _Lance._ So he had succeeded. Tears pricked at her eyes, and an unexpected sorrow tugged at her heart. Only days ago, Allura never would have believed she could care for an outlaw, a criminal, much less count him as a friend. But now, Lance’s death was a blow that nearly struck her off her—no, _his_ —horse.

Allura found she had grown skilled at choking back tears: she had watched more loved ones meet an early grave than most men would have seen in the war, and she had had to learn how to absorb that grief and keep it buried deep inside her. But since there was nobody around to see the Princess of Altea break, just this once she let the tears come without a fight. She gathered up Blue’s reins, touched her heels to his sides, and continued her dash to Balmera, crying freely, tears slipping off her cheeks and landing in the packed dirt of Blue’s hoofprints. _So many dead._

And if she didn’t get moving, that number would keep growing. Allura could only hope the explosion meant Lance had taken Zarkon with him.

She put her back to the smoke, the fire, the swollen river, the ghost of yet another friend gone, and put her thoughts toward her duty to her people.

There was still a job to be done.


	9. Interim

An endless meadow, filled in with watercolor strokes of blue and green. Fog rolled down distant hills that stretched up and up and up until they became one with the heavy clouds overhead, and everything was slightly fuzzy, down to the purple and white flowers that bloomed as numerous as stars in the sky. The light was strange too. It behaved as if it was shining through water, dancing in bright dappled ripples across the fields.

Lance was sitting. Hugging his knees at the top of one of the hills. He didn’t remember how he got there, but somehow he was incapable of feeling anything but the deepest calm.

One moment, he was alone, and the next, he was not.

“Hello,” said the man sitting next to him. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you. Although I admit the circumstances are less than ideal.”

Lance didn’t say anything for a moment. The man was tall, taller than he was, with broad shoulders and light brown skin, dressed in a simple white shirt and billowing pants, wearing no shoes or boots. White hair pulled back into a short ponytail accentuated a face that looked somehow familiar.

“Hi,” Lance said. He made no move to shake the man’s hand, because he felt as if they’d already met somehow. That deep calm resonated through his body.

“I have to thank you, for what you did. Do you know where we are?”

Lance saw what looks like an orb of blue light sitting in the heart of the valley below. He felt the calm radiating out of that light as he was able to feel heat radiating off a fire.

“Um, no.”

“You’ll figure it out soon, I suppose. No need to rush things. How are you feeling?”

“Um…” Lance said again. His first thought was to pull up his white shirt—identical to the man’s—-to check on his stomach wound.

It was completely gone. Only a thin white scar remained in its place.

His companion let out a low whistle. “Somebody must have done quite a number on you, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Lance craned his neck, trying to see through the clouds. What were those flashes of blue he kept getting glimpses of?

“I apologize, I’ve been extremely rude; I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Alfor. Some called me King, although the true title is technically Mayor.”

“Lance,” Lance replied, the name only sinking in a couple of moments after they shook hands. “Wait, ‘Alfor’? As in, _Alfor_ Alfor?”

“Based on that description, it seems likely, yes.”

“So you’re...Allura’s dad?”

“Allura,” Alfor said warmly. “I was wondering when she would come up.” His eyes traveled to the blue orb, shining even brighter now. Even the hills themselves seemed to be bending inwards to feel its power.

“Does she know you’re alive?”

“I’m not sure that word is completely accurate in regards to our current state,” For the first time, Lance tried study what was going on here. A spooky field of flowers. Allura’s murdered dad.

“Am I—”

“That depends.” Alfor chuckled, a sound that somehow perfectly described honey. “I would say that the answer is up to you. Have you figured out where it is we are?”

Lance looked back towards the clouds, where there was now a break. Past them was a rocky stone ceiling, sprinkled with stalagmites and blue crystals.

“The Balmera…” he whispered, trailing off in awe. “Shay said something about it trusting its power to me. But this...what is this? Does it have a field in its stomach? Did it _eat_ us? I read the Bible, sir, I can get us out—”

“No, no, it did not eat us, as exciting an adventure as that might have been.” Alfor’s smile crinkled like paper around his eyes. He brushed a hand through the tall grass, the blades each kissing his fingers like loving admirers. “I’ve discovered it’s more useful to ask ‘why’ than ‘where’ in these types of situations. The answers tend to make more sense.”

“Okay, _why_ are we here?”

“The Balmera’s power.” Alfor shrugged, still gazing out over the fields. “Lance...you’ve saved the Balmera. Do you feel that?”

Lance closed his eyes. He did feel something, now that Alfor mentioned it. Those waves of calm, but coming back stronger and stronger off of the orb.

“What is—”

“My daughter,” Alfor said, voice filled to bursting with pride. “She’s calming the Balmera. After you released the river and cooling it down, she went to aid in persuading it back to slumber. You see? You’ve saved the Balmera’s life. It knows this, and it wants to repay you.”

“By trapping me in a valley with you?”

This made Alfor laugh again. “This gentle animal does not think the way we do. It’s mind is much more...vague. The answer to where or what we are is probably not something we would be able to comprehend.”

“Sir—Alfor—all this time Allura thought you were dead. I know what you said about your story, and I know what Allura told me, but...what happened, exactly? To you and Zarkon?”

“You’re not asking the right question. You already know what happened.”

Lance frowned. “Okay...who was Zarkon? Before all of this? Who were you?”

“Ah,” Alfor said, and then said it again. “Ah. Before all of this...you know, I was very much like yourself. You and your friend Keith remind me much of what was. We were adventurers. Zarkon, Coran, myself a small band of others. We all came from wealth but we wanted to explore the West without wealth’s restraints. Sometimes we were mercenaries, other times, bounty hunters. Sometimes we were just happy to have survived our last scrap.”

Alfor seemed lost in the memory, but he looked at Lance. His eyes were staring right through into Lance’s heart. “Zarkon and myself were very much like you indeed,” he whispered. “We loved each other, for a time.”

A long moment stretched out between them. For once, Lance knew when to keep himself quiet. He could tell that remembering hurt Alfor.

“I’m afraid that whatever my daughter told you, it was not completely true.”

“What do you mean?”  
“I told Allura, when she came asking questions, that Zarkon’s mining had provoked the Balmera to waking. But in reality...it was I. Zarkon and I did injure it with our mining activities; that much is correct. I left the business when I recognized the hurt it was causing, but Zarkon insisted on continuing the pillaging of the earth, disturbing those who lived in it more and more. Eventually there came a time when the Balmera faced a crossroads. It either had to wake, thus allowing its metabolism to speed up to heal its wounds in time to save its life, or it could slumber and die a slow and painful death. Not knowing what it would do, I took matters into my own hands. The Balmera nurtures this land. It protects those who live below its surface. And it also was not responsible for the harm that had been inflicted upon it. So, gods help me, I chose to wake it.

“But since it was under Altea, in my selfishness I attempted to create a third option. In my family runs a connection to the Balmera, and I used that connection to direct it away from us in a sort of subterranean sleepwalk.”

Alfor took a shuddering breath.

“I never stopped to think about the consequences. As it happened, my plan worked. The Balmera traveled away and did not rise from under Altea. “But it _did_ rise.”

Tears were building in Alfor’s eyes, ready to spill like the great dam Lance had just blew.

“Under Zarkon,” Lance guessed, and saw the truth of it on Alfor’s expression.

“Yes. His entire extended family lived on those acres. Everyone he had ever loved and cared about, crushed in a matter of seconds. After a few days of the Balmera roaming the surface and healing itself, I was able to coax it back to sleep with the help of the guardians who live under the earth. But the damage had been done. When Zarkon came asking questions, I told him the truth. What else could I do?”

A long breath escaped Alfor’s lungs. In that moment, to Lance, he looked at the same time very young and very old. “I’m only grateful that Allura’s mother had the wit to hide both of themselves well enough until Zarkon’s rage abated. I still wonder if I don’t deserve what Zarkon did to me.”

For a long time, there was silence. Alfor and Lance sat next to each other, neither feeling like they had to say anything. But there was a feeling building in Lance’s chest, and finally he couldn’t hold it in any longer:

“No,” Lance said, shaking his head. “No, what Zarkon did wasn’t a Bloodride. He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was just spreading more pain.”

Alfor raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re a very wise young man.”

“Maybe,” Lance said. “Maybe not. But if you’re trying to blame someone, you can’t just blame yourself.”

“Perhaps.”

“Can I ask one more question?”

“Of course.”

“If you’re not...you know...dead, why don’t you go back?

“I’m afraid for me there is no going back.” The clouds had an even darker cast to them now, and there were no more breaks in their blanket. “You see Lance, my body was destroyed. I have nowhere to go back to. But, my spirit was rescued by this extraordinary animal. So here I live on, a sort of half-life within the Balmera’s essence, alone until now, where it has chosen to save the life of another.”

“Does that mean I’m trapped here too?”  
“Well, that depends. Do you want to be?”

Lance considered this. But before he could speak, the sphere of light coalescing down in the heart of the valley pulsed.

The flowers rustled as Alfor stood, stretching out his arms above his head. “I’m afraid our time is running short. I must go and speak to my daughter while I can.”

“Totally, yeah.” A lump had taken hold in Lance’s throat. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t at least try to ask the next question. “Um, Alfor...if you’re still here after you died, does that mean—I guess what I mean is, are my parents...could they be—”

Alfor’s warm hand rested on the top of Lance’s head, and he found himself leaning into the gesture. “It’s time to let them go, Lance.” That smile again. “Please believe me when I say that you do not want this for them. Accept the gift the Balmera has given you. Rise to meet its challenge. There are others who love you who are still very much alive. Cherish them.”

That smile broadened into a wide grin. Without another word Alfor turned and began walking down the hill. Lance watched him go, hugging his knees tighter than ever to his chest, his mind whirring with a dozen new questions to ask. But it was too late; he was already in the valley, talking with the sphere of light that was morphing into an Allura-shaped figure. Lance could see Alfor laughing as he talked.

But he felt like he was somehow intruding by watching, so he picked himself off the ground and began walking even further up the hill, towards the thick clouds that were now white and puffy and towering. Nothing hurt anymore. All of the bullet wounds, cuts, bruises, and poison of the last few days had all been scrubbed away. Lance wondered what that meant about him and Keith.

_Keith._ As he hiked, Lance was filled with an almost magnetic yearning _. Keith._ He still wasn’t sure where he was or what was going on, or if it meant he got to live again, but even the thought of the smell of Keith’s cologne and the sound of his unexpected laugh drove Lance up that hill, walking faster and faster until he was almost running. Clouds overtook him. They swallowed everything, transforming everything into a cool, wet fog, sprinkling against Lance’s cheek like a spring shower. He wanted to know if he and Keith were okay. He wanted to explain to Keith everything that was in his heart and bursting out of it, how he wanted to hold him and never ever let him go again. More than anything, he wanted to hug Keith as tight as possible and whisper to him that he understood him, and that he was sorry, that he had done his best to try and meet him halfway and he was sorry if even that had torn their wounds open again.

The hill began to flatten out into a broad, neverending plateau. Though he had just ran up what seemed like miles, Lance wasn’t the least bit tired, not wet from the clouds. He stood with his arms out. Took in the primal wildness of this place.

Only feet above his head was that same rocky cave roof he had spied before, identical to Shay’s cavern. Lance stretched his arm out and touched one of the blue crystals, larger than he was tall. Droplets of water collected on the crystal and ran down its length to drip onto Lance’s finger and splatter on his cheeks; this time, when the water touched him, it really did dampen his clothes. The water dripped faster and faster and in greater quantities, until it was as if Lance was standing under a faucet, and then a small stream and then a waterfall.

He gasped in the chill. But this only succeeded in letting the water flood his mouth and his eyes, choking him, grabbing at him with murky hands. The weight of the water dragged him down. Forced him to his knees. Lance tried to stand but found there was no longer solid ground beneath his feet. He was completely submerged.

With bleary eyes he peered around in the water, but it was nearly pitch black; Lance couldn’t tell which way was up. He kicked out his arms and legs, trying to right himself but failing.

A glimmer of gold.

Lance reached out and grabbed the pocket watch, clutching it tight to his chest. It had been sinking in the water, which meant... _that way. Up. Swim._

But it was too far. His lungs were already burning; who knew how long his body had been passed out in the water for? Lance swam as hard as he could, ignoring the flashbulb memories of his parents teaching him how to swim in the ocean, of the birds wheeling overhead, of how happy he had been.

Too far, too far too far too far. He wasn’t going to make it. Lance screamed and the bubbles enveloped his head, a thousand tiny angels of air all being summoned to the surface, flying away without him. _Come back,_ he wanted to tell them. _Come back and help me._

Lance’s vision began to dim. What a cruel joke, he thought, to come all this way, to get so close only to drown. After everything it just seemed...anticlimactic. At least he knew what kind of humor the universe liked.

The light at the top of the water was drifting away. His limbs had stopped working. When had that happened?  
“I’m sorry, Keith,” Lance said. “I tried so hard. At least you’re free now. You’re free.” But there was no sound, only water, water in his throat and his lungs.

Lance waited for the final black.

And then.

A pair of glowing eyes, swimming up to him from the deep.


	10. Westward Graves

Hands digging into his armpits. Strong, unyielding, A body under his own, his arm slung around a shoulder, legs kicking in the water, propelling them upward.

 

Air slapping his face like a new life.

 

Getting thrown onto the dirt. Hands stronger than pistons pumping the water from his chest.

 

Thundering hooves. Voices shouting. The sun so bright in his eyes.

 

An eclipse.

 

Lips on his, familiar. The pistons working his chest. Breath flowing down his throat.

 

“C’mon you idiot, breath.” The voice was so far away. “Come _on_ . You never freaking shut up and now you won’t even breath? No. C’mon, Lance. _Come on!_ ”

Something in his body wanted out. Lance rolled onto his side and felt a stream of water gurgle up like a spring. He coughed it out into the dirt, took one glorious breath, coughed, and breathed again. The air was so sweet in his lungs he thought he might cry. There were voices again, though this time they seemed to be cheering instead of shouting.

Lance groaned and willed his eyes open for real.

What he saw was brighter than the sun.

Keith’s face was inches away from his own, his black hair usually pulled back now hanging down like a curtain between them and the rest of the world. “Rise and shine,” Keith whispered, face barely able to contain the smile on his face. He leaned in and rubbed his stubbly chin against Lance’s cheek. “Don’t you want to see this beautiful face?

Lance knew this game.

Keith kissed him lightly, on the lips, and in an instant Lance was mirroring Keith’s smile.

“Good morning,” Lance murmured, and he was kissing Keith back, letting them sink into that feeling—

But then Keith pulled away.

“Hey, so I have some good news and some bad news.”

“What?”

“The good news is you’re alive. Washed up a half mile downriver of a very expensive dam you just blew up, but alive. The bad news is, I’m going to kill you again for pulling that stunt.”

“Well, now you know how it feels.”

Keith sighed, the moment broken. "Yeah." Eyes searching the sky past Lance's head. "Look, Lance...We can’t keep doing this to each other. What I said on the train is true. I want to live. I want to live for you, and for my brother. I know I’m no use dead.” He winced. “And I promise I’ll stop thinking like that. Not everything’s a cost-benefit analysis, I guess. You were right.”

Lance kissed him again and said, “But so were you, dude. Living just to live, just for myself? That’s not living. Not really. And I promise I’m done Bloodriding. I don’t think I could survive another one.”

“That’s not funny, Lance.”

“C’mon, it’s a little funny.”

They stared at each other.

“And, um, about me, you know...keeping the Blades thing from you—”

“It’s—”

“I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. But I promise you,” Keith said, cupping Lance’s cheeks in his hands, “I promise you on my life that I have always loved you. I was using you. I was, and I’m sorry for that. But I love you.”

Lance couldn't tear his eyes away from the person on top of him. A slow, easy smile spread across his face.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Okay.”

He looked down, Keith’s eyes following.

“Can I…?”

Lance nodded mutely.

With trembling fingers, Keith reached down and drew back the hem of Lance’s shirt.

A thin white scar.

Nothing more.

That laugh again, uncontrollable, uncontainable, fizzy like root beer. Becoming more sure of itself, relief pouring in at the realization that all the ugliness growing between them had been rooted out and destroyed. They kissed again and again, relishing each other, painting a picture of this moment, because goddamn was Lance in love, and it felt freaking awesome and he never wanted it to stop.

It took Lance a second to orient himself; for the first time, he looked around to take stock of his surroundings. He was laying on a muddy riverbank, surrounded by low foothills that grew scrubby bushes like hair. The river itself swollen and filled with wooden debris; when he followed its path north and west, he saw that Keith hadn’t been lying: the dam, or what was left of it, looked as if it had been smited by God. The entire middle third was ripped away, leaving a twisted mass of metal lines like broken blood veins where the the railway had been. Water was still gushing through, eager to fill its old riverbed once again.

Everything came hurtling back. The train. Zarkon. Fire. The bomb.

The Balmera.

The river, and that awful darkness.

Lance looked back at Keith.

“You saved me,” he breathed. “I was drowning. You saved me.”

Keith scratched the back of his neck. “Actually, ah—”

“It was I who found you in the river.” Keith drew back to allow Lance a better view.

“Shay!” Lance grinned, accepting Keith’s outstretched hand, pulling him to his feet. A little wobbly, but not too bad, everything considered. Shay was standing a little ways off, for once wearing a smile. She, too, was soaking wet, but definitely not dead. “You’re alive!”

“It is wonderful, is it not?” Shay giggled and punched him playfully in the arm, sending him staggering back. He laughed with her. “The Balmera guided me out of the collapsed cavern. I followed its call through passages our people had forgotten about. That was where I was located when the river began to flow again, so I swam through these waters and was led to you.” Shay moved and Lance flinched, thinking he was about to be punched again, but instead was enveloped in a massive hug that maybe, just maybe, rivaled a world-famous Hunk Hug. “You saved it,” Shay said into Lance’s neck. “You and Allura both. You set the river back on its course, cooling the Balmera, giving it sustenance. And Allura lulled it back into its slumber. I cannot thank you enough.”

“Don’t mention it, really.”

Shay drew back at arm’s length, confused. “But why would I not mention it? I do not understand.”

“Oh, it’s just a saying—”

“ _Lance!_ ” At that moment Lance was struck with a very tiny object moving very fast that wrapped herself around his waist, squeezing him tighter than he would have thought her arms capable of. “You’re okay!”

“Pidgeon! What, did you think it’s that easy to kill a Ghost?” Lance cracked up at his own joke, but stopped when he saw there were tears in Pidge’s eyes. He ruffled her hair and hugged her back. “It’s okay, Katie. I’m okay. Really.”

“Man, you really scared us back there. Please, just, don’t do that ever again.” Hunk loomed over Pidge and hugged Lance, proceeding to picking both of them up off their feet in typical Hunk hug fashion.

Lance groaned. “Buddy, I think my ribs are cracking.” Hunk set them both down, his face flushing, but then Lance went in for another hug. Who could resist Hunk hugs? “I love you too, big guy.”

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Shiro said, appearing beside Lance. He clamped down with one of his Brother Shoulder Touches, smiling warmly. “For the record, I still think you’re out of your mind. And my brother still won’t talk to me because of your plan back there on the train.”

Lance was about to reply when something wet knickered in his ear.

“Blue!” he shouted. His horse whinnied and shook her head in response, and Lance swore she was smiling too. “You’re really something, you know that, old girl?” Lance bumped his forehead against his beloved horse’s. He didn’t know if he believed in reincarnation, but right then, the spirit of his mama seemed awful close by. “Thanks for coming back. Speaking of, how did you all find me?”

Pidge wiped the back of her hand across her face and adjusted her glasses, officially donning her Pidge Armor once more. “Easy,” she rolled her eyes. “After you ditched us, we looked for the biggest explosion we could find and assumed you were at the epicenter.”

“Look, you guys, about that—”

“Don’t,” Keith cut him off. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Does that mean...you’re not mad at me?”

“Oh, trust me, I’m fucking furious. At you and your co-conspirators both.” Keith shot a glance at Shiro. “But I’ll just tear out your throat later, when the kids aren’t around.” The scary thing was, Lance really couldn’t tell if Keith was being sarcastic or not. The guy could be inscrutable when he wanted.

He pinwheeled for a new subject. “Speaking of co-conspirators, where’s Allura?”

Everyone fell silent. Lance looked from person to person, but nobody would meet his eyes. Finally, Hunk coughed and pointed off to the foothills that picked up around the river. Scanning the tops of the hills, Lance spied a figure kneeling over a cross.

 

**

 

“Hey.” Lance crested the hill where Allura knelt. This close up he could see the cross was not wood but marble, worn down by years of weather out in the scrublands. He waited for Allura to talk; he was becoming more and more familiar with this emotion, this being with someone without needing words. And he understood her grief.

Minute after minute passed. Finally, without giving any indication she had seen him, Allura spoke.

“This is my father’s grave,” she said, unmoving. Pain had scraped her vocal cords like sandpaper. “One of his last requests was to be buried just outside of Altea, facing the setting sun in the West. Even in death, he said, it would remind him of the adventures that lay ahead.” Lance didn’t press her for details on her conversation with Alfor in the Balmera; whatever had passed between her and him was for them and them alone.

Orange light streaked across Allura’s face, transforming her white hair into brilliant fire. The sun was hanging low in the sky, and the world was shifting, laying down to rest for what was sure to be a chilly night.

“Coran was like a second father to me, Lance. He raised me. He loved me as his own daughter. How many of my fathers must I watch die?”

Lance didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He had known Coran too, but not like Allura had.

In one fluid motion Allura drew her saber, the metal reflecting the last of the light like a beacon, and then plunged it into the dirt beside Alfor’s grave. It stood quivering. “You taught me how to fight with this very sword, Coran, and it was a gift from you. But it never belonged to me. Wherever you are now I wish for you to have it at your side.” Tears streamed down her face. “And I will miss you. Always.”

Lance sat beside Allura, accepting her head on his shoulder when she couldn’t bear it alone anymore. And she cried.

 

**

 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Allura said some time later, still resting on him. “And it wasn’t your fault.”

Where was the line between sunset and night? Lance could never seem find it. “I know. But it isn’t yours either, Princess.”

Allura sighed. “There’s no need for you to call me that any longer. It was only ever a nickname anyway. Allura, daughter of Alfor the Mayor, Alfor the ‘King’. You can see how that lead to ‘Princess’.” She squeezed Lance’s hand. “What will become of Altea now?”

“I told you, Pr-...Allura. I think they’re gonna need you. Zarkon wasn’t the only greedy guy in Texas.”

“Perhaps.”

"What you did today...Allura, Shay's right. You saved everyone. I mean, riding a baby Balmera onto the train? Taking out Haggar like that? Dude, you're, like, who I want to be when I grow up."

That managed to pull a small laugh from her, and Lance took the creases by her eyes as sign that she'd be okay. Maybe not now, but someday. 

After another few silent minutes, Lance extracted himself from Allura. He wandered off a little ways, searching for sticks big enough for what he wanted. It took a little while, but finally he came back with an arm load, and knelt down beside Allura to begin tying them together. She understood immediately. When his fingers faltered, still numb from the river’s cold, her deft ones stepped in to finish. They dug three little holes with their hands and buried the crosses in two of them, the sword in the third. Then he set to gathering a rocks to pile around the base of each of them. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do.

“I never buried my parents,” Lance said. “I guess I was just too afraid to go back. And I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife or whatever, but...it seems like they should have something, you know?”

Allura nodded and squeezed his hand.

“I’ve been thinking of what Keith said on the train. That I had nobody left.”

“Oh, Allura, he didn’t mean—”

“Yes, he did. And he was right.” Suddenly, without warning, Allura flew into Lance, hugging him quickly and tightly before stepping away, embarrassed. “He was right then. But he is wrong now,” she whispered. The sleepy sun illuminated the space between them. Allura smiled at him. “I have all of you. Neither of us are alone.”

There wasn’t anything left to say. As they walked back to join the rest of the group, Lance glanced at the dusky sky. Two birds were making their way across the starscape, unidentifiable except for their large black silhouetted wings flapping with gentle serenity.

 

**

 

Because there was only one horse between them, darkness had fallen on their group before they could make it back to Altea. Instead of riding through the night they had decided to make camp and a fire. Like Shiro said, it wasn’t like they were in any sort of rush now.

Lance lay with his head in Keith’s lap, watching everyone talk and laugh around the dancing flames. Once his hard shell was broken, Shiro was actually a pretty funny dude. He had Hunk and Pidge in stitches with some of the stories he told, most of which Lance was pretty sure weren’t actually intended to be funny. And it didn’t escape his notice either how close Allura and Shay were sitting, taking long minutes to whisper to each other and giggle, the tips of both of their ears blushing furiously. Supposedly Shay had started the conversation to thank Allura again, but by now it had to be just about the longest thank-you Lance had ever seen.

“So boss,” Pidge asked Lance, poking him with a stick that had very recently been on fire. “Where to next? What’s the plan?”

“Plan? Uh, I guess I don’t really know.” Lance batted the hot stick away. The future wasn’t something he had considered much lately, mostly because he hadn’t really thought he was going to live past today.

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Somebody write to the newspapers, Lance is at a loss for words.”

“You know,” Shiro said, “I’ll be heading to New York City soon, the main hub of the Galra. With Zarkon and Haggar dead there’ll be plenty of smaller heads fighting for control, and the Blades have to be ready to make sure one of our own is put in charge. I’m sure I could find a good use for you and your crew.”

“You mean, work for the Blades?” _That_ was certainly a new thought. New York City was half a continent away, but on the other hand, what was left for him out here? There were no more ghosts to hide from, no more battles to be fought. There was money and booze, sure, but those things were also practically New York City’s motto, from what he had heard. “Hunk? Pidge? What do you think?”

“I’m down for whatever,” Pidge said. “As long as I get to keep blowing stuff up.”

Shiro coughed. “The Blades could use a demolitions expert. Strictly off the books, of course.”

Hunk raised the apple he was roasting from the flames, tried to bite into it, and was quickly sent searching for water. When he recovered, he said, “Yeah, and I hear there’s like, a new engineering breakthrough every week out there. I’d love to see what I can learn. And help you guys mop up Galra.”

Keith kissed Lance. “And we’d get to go together.”

A goofy grin sprouted on Lance’s face. “New York City...you know what? Screw it. Hell yeah, let’s go to New York.”

Pidge and Hunk cheered, and Keith kissed him on the cheek again. But Lance was looking elsewhere.

“Allura? What about you? Will you be alright out here?”

“Hmmm?” Surfacing from her conversations with Shay, Allura blinked at all of them. “What’s happening?”

“New York City,” Keith said. “As in, we’re all going.”

“You want in?” Pidge asked.

“It’s an...exciting prospect, but no, thank you. As a very intelligent individual recently reminded me, Altea needs me now more than ever.” Allura’s eyes smiled at Lance. “And the Blades will require somebody to keep an eye on the Galra industry in Texas. I’m willing to volunteer for the task.”

Shiro nodded. “Thank you, Princess. That would be a big help.”

After another few celebratory hours, everyone started to head off the bed. There was still a long walk to Altea in the morning, and then a much further trip ahead of them after that; what with the rail line being more or less destroyed, it would take a while to get anywhere, much less Chicago, where Shiro and Keith would gather the Blades before setting out east.

But Lance and Keith stayed up even as everyone else headed off to bed, watching the sky steadily darken by degrees, imperceptible individually until they all piled on top of one another and tumbled over into night.

“We’ll put out the fire,” Keith told Shiro, who shot him a knowing smile, but left anyway. And then it was just the two of them, the fire, and a million million stars.

Lance squirmed, feeling uncharacteristically uncomfortable with what he wanted to ask.

“Lance? Are you feeling okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, totally,” Lance said, calming the hint of panic in Keith’s voice. “What about you? You lost a lot of blood today.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Famous last words.”

Keith poked his cheek and they giggled like little kids. Gods, Lance had missed this. He missed Keith. He missed how easy the two of them were with each other, how he didn’t have to think, how they fit together as if they had been created to do just that.

“Keith,” Lance started. “Does this mean, um...does this mean we’re boyfriends again?”

Keith took his time answering. “Hm...I don’t know. I think I’m going to need you to beg a lot more than that. _You’re_ the one who dumped _me_ ”

“I didn’t dump you,” Lance protested. “I just...I mean...okay, maybe I dumped you a little. But what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, okay? I understand why you did what you did.”

“And I understand you, too.” Keith ran his fingers through Lance’s hair, sending goosebumps down his neck. “I didn’t realize...having the same thing happen to me, I didn’t realize how much it hurt. Can we just agree that we were both being stupid?”

“No, not stupid,” Lance said. “Just...blind, I guess. To each other.”

“You’re sounding very wise tonight, you know that?”

“Yeah, well, maybe dying and coming back to life imbued me with some cosmic wisdom.”

“Don’t be dramatic. Shay said you never died.”

“I was gonna. Which is like, karmically the same thing.” Lance scooched around so he could sit up and look Keith in the eyes. “I was prepared to leave you. And I don’t ever want to feel like that again. I promise, Keith, I’m going to love you for, like, forever. For the rest of our lives, okay?”

Keith’s eyes went wide.

“What.”

“Lance, did you just...”

“Did I _what?_ ”

“Did you just—did you just _propose?_ ”

Oh. _Oh._ An electric thrill raced from Lance’s head and spread like wide lightning through everywhere else. He swallowed, couldn’t, and swallowed again. Lance looked at his shoes, scrubbing the back of his head, mortified.

“Um...yes? Yeah, uh, I guess I did, yeah.”

Keith still hadn’t blinked. Color was slowly bleeding into his face, moisture collecting in his eyes.

“Look, Keith, um, just forget about it okay? It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. I understand if you wanna say no, like it’s totally cool, I just—”

“Y _es_ , Lance. I’ll marry you. Holy shi—yes, of course yes!”

Lance looked at Keith, but Keith had already flown forward and they were kissing again, and both of them were crying. “Yes,” Keith kept saying, over and over again through his tears. “Yes, yes, yes. I’ll marry you, you handsome idiot, I’ll marry you.”

The feeling was indescribable. It was as if Lance had stepped out of one age and into another; he was the same person but somehow felt totally and irreversibly different than he had a second ago, and he knew this was how he would be for the rest of his life: catastrophically, irreversibly, profoundly in love.

“Um, Keith? There’s one small problem.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have a ring.” Lance thought about it for a second, then fished around in his pocket. He surfaced with Keith’s golden pocket watch, which by now looked as if it had gone through a war; its surface was dented and chipped and the clock had stopped, but Lance kind of liked it this way. There was no more tick-tock-ticking, constantly counting down the seconds of his life. Time was frozen. Just like it was when he was with Keith.

“Here,” Lance said, and unclasped the golden chain. He wound it around Keith’s ring finger, using the clasp to hook the chain back to itself.

“It’s beautiful,” Keith said, eyes shining. “But what about you?”

“You told me to give the watch back to you when I saw you again.” Lance studied it, turning it over and over in his hands. “But if I’m always with you, does that mean I have to return it?”

Keith smiled, and closed Lance’s fingers around the watch. “No,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss him again. “No,” he said into Lance’s mouth. “Keep it. It’s yours. _I’m_ yours.”

The night stretched on around them but they remained oblivious to its movements, so caught up were they in each others’ souls, seeing them as they had never seen them before, enraptured by what they had and what they had come so close to losing, and what they would have, in each other, for all the future to come. In that moment Lance could have sprouted wings.

He could imagine flying high above the desert with Keith, wheeling in the air, and letting the wind whisper,

—“I love you, I love you, I love you.”


	11. Epilogue and Acknowledgements

_**1 year later.** _

_New York City._

The Ghost of the West followed only one law: doing the right thing was stupid.

Doing what was right was for good people. And Lance wasn’t sure if he was a good man; for the majority of his life, he certainly hadn’t been. But then he had met people, and grown close to those people, and though he had been lost they had found him again.

And it was those people he was counting on now, squatting behind a wall of crates at some grimy dock in New York during some unholy hour of the morning. He, Keith, Pidge, Hunk and Shiro had been keeping tabs at different locations at the docks, staking out based on a tip the Blades had gotten about a secret Galra shipment. But six dark and cramped hours later, there was still no shipment to be had, and the team had gathered back together to come up with a new strategy.

“Alrighty,” Pidge whispered, breath fogging in the chilly air. “What’s the plan, Ghost of the West?”

Lance shifted his weight from leg to screaming leg. “You know, I’ve been thinking it over, and I think it’s time for a new name.”

“What, you don’t want to be called Ghost anymore?”

Lance thought about it. “Ghost” felt wrong now. Ghost was what he had been: a soul drifting through the desert, not quite alive, not quite dead, searching for something he hadn’t known the name of, unable to find peace. But he was no longer in that desert, and he was no longer alone.

The Ghost of the West followed only one law: doing the right thing was stupid.

But then again, laws were made to be broken.

“Nah,” Lance said, adjusting his hat. “I don’t think so.”

“So then what’ll it be?”

He looked at Keith. What was he now? What were _they_ now? These days, Lance strode with purpose. He no longer robbed for money and glory and adrenaline, but fought against a company who would ruin lives. That wasn’t the activity of a ghost. That was brave. Heroic. Chivalrous. Like a—

“Paladin,” Lance said finally. He tugged up his blue bandana to cover the lower half of his face. “The Blue Paladin.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “The Blue Paladin. I like it.”

“I call Green Paladin. What?” Pidge looked at all of them in turn. “I never thought it was fair Lance had his own nickname and we didn’t. Besides, we’re like, a team now, right?”

“Of course we’re a team,” Shiro smiled at Pidge. “I guess that makes me Black Paladin. Probably should start using codenames if I’m going to run a secret organization, huh?”

Hunk raised his hand. “If we’re all getting names, can I be Yellow Paladin?”

“Of course, Hunk my man. Yellow Paladin it is. And Keith?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I like red, I guess.”

“Then you can be the Red Paladin, I Guess,” Lance sniggered when Keith punched him in the arm. “Sick names, everyone. Now let’s go. If my eyes don’t deceive me, I think our friends finally decided to show up. We have a job to do.”

And they did: people-shaped shadows were shifting down at the docks, planning who-knew-what, getting ready for their latest scheme. The bright moon shown in the night sky through silvery clouds, and steam drifted across the river like old spirits. The Galra were on the move.

But so were the Paladins.

One of the men down below shouted: they had been spotted. Lance nodded at Pidge, who grinned and held up a switch connected to a skinny black wire. Just as the men below began to draw their weapons, a crate on the docks nearby exploded in a cacophony of fire and splintering wood.

Lance wasted no time; he stood, whipping out his trusted rifle, and began firing. Keith knelt at his side, putting down a blanket of cover fire so Lance wouldn’t get picked off while he stood. And he felt it: that old adrenaline, pumping through and through his body, that veil of death fluttering against his cheek. But it was also different. He remembered the fight at the gorge, all that time ago, how he had revealed in the nearness to death, the surging power it gave him. And Lance knew one thing: he cared now. He cared whether he lived or died. He flinched when bullets clipped too close to his person, or his friends, and he wanted the excitement of this mission, sure, but he also wanted to make it back home that night and curl up with Keith in their bed and lace their hands together while they fell asleep.

His rifle out of ammunition, Lance wheeled around and sat behind the cover of a crate, facing the rest of his team, panting heavily while he reloaded.

“Okey-doke, Paladins! Looks like we’ve been made. Which just makes it a regular Saturday night for us. Everyone know their assignments?”

All around them, the lights of the gilded city glimmered and were reflected back on the river. The sound of gunfire was as natural as the patter of a gentle rain. Lance felt an unexpected swell of emotion as his team nodded back at him, weapons raised, ready to follow him to the end. He may not have wanted to die, but Gods, he loved this. And wherever or whenever that end may be, Lance knew it wouldn’t be today.

“Alrighty then.” Lance nodded back, flashing one of his trademark grins before pulling his blue bandana back up over his mouth. “Then let’s get to work.”

  
**

_Altea._

The Queen of Altea sat back at her desk, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms. Technically she was only Mayor, but the royal nickname had grown into something of a tradition in the town, so when she had been officially elected, the title had fallen naturally to her.

Sitting in the office for so long was stifling and claustrophobic. But Allura knew the time had to be put in: the Galra Mining Company had spent the last year blaming the destruction of their dam on Altean citizens, and Allura found herself constantly having to fend back their legal proceedings and mountains of paperwork and letters and confusion tactics of lines between lines in tiny print. But she was skilled at what she did, and their case was helped by the testimony of two teenage former Galra employees who had been aboard the train that day, swearing it was the Ghost of the West who had knocked them out with nothing but his boot. He had shown mercy where he could have killed them.

In addition, there was the matter of the Galra scare tactics, sneaking around at night and killing horses and cattle, driving people who lived in more isolated areas to the relative safety of Altea. If it wasn’t for Shay, Allura might have screamed from the frustration of the Company’s relentlessness.

The Queen often found herself wishing for someone like Lance. Of course she herself would never dream of stepping outside the law, but being friends with an individual who had less of a sense for rule-following could be infinitely useful. It was a shame he and his crew were hundreds of miles away.

There was a knock at her office door.

“Come in,” Allura called, not looking up from the letter she was writing. Every time somebody came to her office she had to quell the hope it was Coran, come with a pot of tea and a story. Though that wound was a year healed now, some days it still felt as raw as when it was inflicted. She dreamt about it, sometimes. Not nightmares, exactly, but more like a dull ache. Some days she wondered if the conversation she had with her father after calming the Balmera hadn’t been made up too.

The guest was not Coran, as it would never be again. She glanced up; her doors were pushed open by a skinny man wrapped in some sort of dusty, roughspun poncho, his face obscured by the brim of a large hat. At his side was a man and a woman, both of them hard-looking but with soft eyes.

“Mayor,” the man in front said, not unkindly. “Thanks for having us. I know how busy you must be.”

“Of course. My doors are always open.” Allura stood. “How can I be of service to you? Is it the Galra? If they’ve run off more cattle, I swear—”

“Actually, we don’t need help. I’m offering it.”

Well, this was certainly new. Allura stepped forward, trying to see under the brim of that hat. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your names.”

“Rolo,” the guy on the left said, a long piece of grass sticking out his mouth. He wore a sleeveless vest and made no move to shake her hand. Instead, he jerked a thumb to the tall girl standing on their leader’s right. “Abd that there's Nyma.”

“A pleasure,” Nyma said, winking at Allura.

The man in the middle stayed silent. Fine. Well, if he wanted to be mysterious, Allura knew how to handle his type. “I’m afraid the town doesn’t have much in the way of money to pay anyone willing to lend their services—”

“Oh, I don’t need money. In fact, it’s information you can pay me in.”

“How so?”

The man in the middle stepped forward, raising the brim of his hat for the first time: long, sandy hair framed gold-brown eyes and a face that looked somehow familiar. He stuck out his hand, smiling, and Allura shook it.

“Sorry for all the weird vibes. I just...I didn’t know if you were who I wanted you to be. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Of course. Forgive me, but what was your name again?” Allura frowned, studying this man’s face closer. He was familiar, she was sure of it. But she also knew she had never met him before.

The man stepped back in line with his companions, scrubbing at the back of his head like he was nervous.

“Matthew. Or Matt, if you want. Matt Holt. And I’m looking for my sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A freakin huge thanks is owed to Dante for being the very first pair of eyes to ever read this project and for giving me the double thumbs up. But more than that, you were my cheerleader, my rock, and my inspiration throughout this entire process. You were the one I talked to at all hours of the night, the one who coached me through this, the one who kept me excited about it, and also responsible for the very first piece of fan art I have ever gotten about my writing. I’ll seriously treasure it forever. You’re a fantastic friend and I don’t know where I’d be without you.
> 
> Thank you to my sister, for taking time out of your wildly busy life to edit this thoroughly, for asking me hard questions and challenging me to do better, and for being possibly a bigger nerd than I am. A lot of people don’t get along with their siblings. I feel bad for them.
> 
> Lastly, thank you to you. There’s been a lot of stuff about readers not being responsive enough to fics, so my two cents is: you’re what makes it worth it. Yeah, I write for myself, but who am I kidding—getting feedback from other people is dope. And also really, really rewarding. All the kind comments on this fic and my other fics have made more than a few of my days, and convinced me to keep writing. Please continue to support fic writers. I am convinced our generation is going to be the greatest movie makers, book writers, and comic artists in the history of this world because we grew up writing fics for the sole purpose of making shitty canon content better, and the fics you all write are better than 99% of the stuff done “professionally”. I am continually awed by the amount of talent in the fanfiction community. For everyone else I missed: thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> Until next time.
> 
> Love,  
> Jack


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